Good Design: Naoto Fukasawa

Good Design: Naoto Fukasawa Edited By Jessica Zhou

Good Design: Naoto Fukasawa Edited by Jessica Zhou

01 Introduction Juice Peel 2004 “Juice Peel” is a series of juice box package designs that captures the actual color and texture of the specific fruit’s peel. The work was designed by Naoto Fukasawa for the Haptic exhibition, a design show sponsored for the 2004 Takeo Paper Show.

Naoto Fukasawa

"Fukasawa's innovative designs of familiar objects are based on his close observations of how we use things in our everday lives. Rather than focusing on objects in isolation, he considers how they relate to their surroundings." [1]

[1] http://www. swedese.se/designers/ naoto-fukasawa/ http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Naoto_Fukasawa Fukasawa, Naoto, ed. Naoto Fukasawa.

London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2007

Industrial designer, design educator and author, Naoto Fukasawa, believes that design should be intuitive and seamlessly engaging to those who experience it. One of Japan's most influential contemporary designers, he is noted for creating designs that are both functionally and conceptually sound.

Born in 1956 in Yamanashi prefecture, Japan, Fukasawa graduated from Tama Art University in 1980. He designs objects that are, as he describes, 'close to the body.' He thinks that design should be a part of the human experience, and the story of how an object comes to be is as important as the final design.

[2] https://collection. cooperhewitt.org/ people/51584871/bio

After spending eight years as the head of the American design firm IDEO's Tokyo office, he established Naoto Fukasawa Design in 2003. That same year, he helped start the Plus Minus Zero brand of household and electronics products.

Fukasawa has received more than 40 international awards, and his work is included in the permanent collections of museums throughout the world. He is currently a professor at Musashino Art University and a visiting lecturer at Tama Art University. [2]

02 Haptic Exhibition

TAKEO company logo design

TAKEO PAPER SHOW 2004 HAPTIC exhibition

Awakening the Senses The term “haptic” means “relating to or pleasant to the sense of touch”. The 2004 paper show focused on the sense of touch, making observations of our everyday surroundings.

Nevertheless, the “HAPTIC” exhibition did not take a nostalgic approach to the touch or feel of paper. Instead, ideas were centered on the concept of haptic used in advanced technology, attempting to re-examine the attraction of paper from that perspective.

In the Exhibition

Fukasawa’s personal website displays four package designs for four different drinks – banana milk, strawberry juice, kiwi juice and soybean milk. However, two additional designs for peach juice and green apple juice were also displayed in the initial exhibition, and Fukasawa created a description label mimicking the Pantone color palette.

// Inspirations

“When thinking of objects where there’s a marked contact with paper, what leapt to mind was a paper drink pack. That slight weightiness, the chill and the beads of water on the surface, and the sense of holding a liquid form a set, together with the flavour of the drink. The skin of a fruit is also part of a set, with the juice, the flavour contained within that skin, and the feel of it. I believed that a design that imparted the idea that the taste could be received tactilely would fit in with the exhibition’s theme. "

Packaging

[1] Naoto Fukasawa, Phaidon, 2007

According to Fukusawa, "Amongst the typical shapes of tetra paks was an octagonal one, and since the configuration of the obtuse faces overlapped with the image of the obtuse surface of a banana, I designed a receptacle for banana-flavoured milk.

Things developed from there." [1] Eventually, Fukasawa used a number of different Tetra Pak containers to contain his six proposed flavors, including Tetra Prisma packaging for the banana milk beverage, gable top cartons for peach juice and Tetra Brik juice boxes for the other 4 flavors.

Tetra Prisma Square

Tetra Brik Square

From the smooth, matte yellow surface with hints of green on the margins to the glossy red surface with white seeds embedded, all packaging depicts the skin of the fruit contained in the box realistically. However, some may argue that a few of the designs also turned out to be rather strange-looking. The soymilk pak’s surface was given a texture like that of firm tofu, and as for the kiwifruit and peach-juice paks, fuzz like texture found on the skin of each fruit was applied.Yet to Fukusawa, this is also a true reflection of the fruits' natural state. He argues, "Looking only at the shape of a fruit, you can’t always say that that fruit looks good.

Sometimes it can look off-putting too.”

03 From Design to Product

Fukusawa's packagings did not remain as a niche designer item - instead, the banana milk packaging was soon acquired by the japanese company TaKaRa in 2005, and used for their new product "TaKaRa Banana au Lait". Based on the original design, TaKaRa added minimal information to maintain its simplicity. The ingredients are listed on the side in green that echoes the edges, while the company's logo is incorporated seamlessly into the round blue sticker on the front.

Sensory Marketing Fukusawa understood that the feel of things people touch unconsciously on a daily basis is committed to memory along with their taste and smell. This matches well with sensory marketing, a strategy that appeals to multiple senses sight, smell, taste, sound and touch.

[2] https://hbr. org/2015/03/thescience-of-sensorymarketing

Senses amplify one another when they are congruent in some way. In Fukusawa's Juice Peel, consumers are not just seeing a paper package, but can sense and touch actual fruits - there is no artificial obstacle between the consumer and the raw materials, making the fruit juice seem fresh and delicious. Such influences are subtle, which is exactly why they are so powerful. Consumers don’t perceive them as marketing messages and therefore don’t react with the usual resistance to ads and other promotions.

[2]

In store product image

04 Epilogue Fukusawa's Juice Peel is no doubt an example of good packaging design realized from the designing stages to a mass produced commercial product.

The minimalistic yet intuitive design evokes the often dismissed sensory elements people encounter everyday, and Fukusawa's intuitive design ideals based on close observation of the object's functions will continue to influence the world.