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NAOTO FUKASAWA
Plus Minus Zero’s 8-inch LCD TV (2003) – a television in the shape of a cathode-ray tube.
interview by shirley surya images and portrait courtesy of naoto fukasawa design
Some see you as a synthesis of East and West. Are there such categories in your design approach?
How often do we encounter a product that is at once instinctive in its usage, beckoning your touch and pull, and whose elements endear themselves to the user? Not often. But stepping into the ±0 (PLUS MINUS ZERO) Aoyama store in Tokyo, where everyday home appliances like humidifiers and cordless phones designed by Naoto Fukasawa are sparsely displayed, induced just such a response. From designing printers, to helming IDEO’s Tokyo arm and going solo with his own much-coveted product line, Fukasawa has grown from crafting objects to crafting relationships between users and their objects. With everything there is already possible to know about the designer – famous for his MoMA-worthy MUJI CD Player and over 40 award-winning poetry-meets-function designs – in his Phaidon monograph, iSh attempts to peer further into some of our set assumptions on Fukasawa’s relation to Japanese culture, minimalism, and design. So intuitive is his approach to design, it can either liberate or frustrate those who seek to pin down and emulate his steps. But perhaps the ambiguity is a call to a deeper search of our relationships with our subjects and objects; to think simple, in our own way. For all that the grandmaster of product design had shared, amidst plenty of jests despite his stern demeanour and self-admitted reticence, iSh is grateful.
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seeing design as just a design process. While IDEO is a stellar group of design consultants for product development, another group exists in Europe where they really strive to make I’m not really designing from the local culture of Japan. I see things that enhance people’s lives. In IDEO, I did strategic demyself more as collecting many elements of design, like the sign which is more about new ideas. However, I also see the company’s brand identity or a country’s culture, its market other side of traditional design in Europe. I might do both. and technologies. Those different bits make one object. If I’m But I want to create a simple way to make peoples’ lives betdesigning for an Italian company, I use more of the bits from ter. Sometimes the American approach to business is too much their culture, so my product becomes more fitting to their – thinking of many good things, much reasoning and being culture. If I express too much of my own there, that’s totally very rational (laughs). Sometimes it makes the process more wrong, because things should fit more naturally. However, I complicated. Design’s answer should be simpler. grew up in a Japanese culture. So that mentality might have influenced the design elements. One can’t ignore that I’m a Some describe your work as “Japanese minimal design”. Do Japanese designer. you agree? And what is this Japanese-ness?
Yes. But I was not trying to follow that. People just describe. It’s the easiest way, because I’m a Japanese designer (laughs).
If you just feel that a design is good, this doesn’t necessarily mean it is really complete. Like when someone says, “Your de- How about the idea of Japanese minimalism? sign is great,” but it has not taken environmental issues into consideration, we won’t be satisfied. So you can say that it is Japanese minimalism is, as I have said, completeness. The radiabout a sense of completeness. cal shape of a red flower, for example, may not look minimal. If there is a flower here, no one would say that it is minimal. But Any difference if you didn’t leave Japan for IDEO? it is totally minimal because a perfect rose looks like a rose. A flower looks like a perfect flower. Minimal is not just whiteI had quite a unique role at IDEO, more like an independent washed. Minimalism is only the essential. There’s no necessity designer. Sometimes people say I’m a “traditional” designer. to add or mix anything with it, yet it’s quite radical. I hate that word. However that may be right because they are more innovative strategists changing the style, know-how and process of design. But I’m still interested to just design and 103
no good time to think. That’s when I ask my assistant, “Hey, make a simple model from my little sketches.” He would then spend a couple of hours before we both look at it, then I’d ask my assistant, “What do you think?” He says, “Very good.” Then, very good. You were allowed to your on your own at IDEO, which is an interdisciplinary and collaborative firm. What do you think of such an approach, especially when you seem to prefer going solo? The auKDDI neon phone (2006) – the beginning of frameless display.
I’m really influenced by IDEO’s approach. They’re very multidisciplinary. Not only about product design, even graphics, interactive design, and engineering. They are really radical in their approach. If I get my idea intuitively, they would review it more logically to make it a really good work. So of course, we need that. Intuitive ideas are never complete. We have to test the negative things to make it stable. There’s also good teamwork in IDEO. There are many innovative people who each have an independent role and we get together to make a difference. So if I were to design with other members, the result might be different. Do you think design firms should take on a similar approach?
Maruni’s Hiroshima chair (2008) – a single solid mass crafted by only one material.
MUJI CD player (1999) – this classic was inspired by a ventilation fan and is in MoMA’s permanent collection. Banana juice packaging (2004) – designed for the Takeo Paper Show, Haptic, which was curated by Kenya Hara.
Shachihata ballpoint pen with stamp (2005) – traditional personal stamp meets modern stationery.
Many wonder “What are your steps?” But it’s tough to figure how you do it because it’s so subjective. The Swedese log (2006) – seating inspired by a fallen tree lying in the forest.
Just think simple. That’s it. The world is complicated. You have to give up and throw away the bits and see the simple things.
It’s not a style? No. But people find it easy to perceive my design as a style. That’s not true, but that’s okay because it’s natural. It’s more about what fits your mind. You may say “I like this”, but I say “You liar. You like other things,” because I choose to research the bits that make you, then find the ones that fit to make it complete. Like “You fit this one perfectly, completely. That’s you.” How do you research? The nature of my research is more about observing. It appears that how you observe seems very intuitive, but you want to remain objective at the same time. The things I described are part of my subjective way but I feel that I’m trying more to be objective. When I draw, it shouldn’t be like how I draw but how anyone draws. If I don’t think too much about it, it’ll look like my design. That’s why I never describe the chair that I want to make. I see you more, and I ask, “What do you feel about the chair you like?” Then I draw it. “Your chair is like... that. How about this?” – something like that. And what happens when people ask, “How do you know?” (Laughs) I observe carefully. I experience with you, without your mind. Because life is here (points to the head) and reality is here (points to the air). You don’t see it but it exists. That’s why it’s very difficult when you ask “Where’s the invisible person?” But it’s here (points to the head and laughs).
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No. You know your body. You know your bits. Your senses already feel it. But you’re not really storing the memory you remember but you definitely have stored them in here. When I open a door for you, hey, you’ve already stored the memory, you really feel it but you don’t realise it. Just think simple. That’s it. The world is complicated. You have to give up and throw away the bits and see the simple things.
I think that depends on the company’s style. I’m a designer but I work with the engineer of a furniture company outside, or the design coordinator elsewhere. So IDEO is more of a complete organisation. That’s the only difference. Innovation can be achieved in any situation. I’m solo as a product designer but I have to listen to those of other professions. IDEO takes on a more multi-disciplinary approach to product and strategies. But I prefer being a designer, seeing design like a craft. But I know high-tech engineering too. Jasper Morrison said you’re someone who always has a story to tell for every product you design. No, I don’t like to tell the story to everyone. In my Phaidon book, Jasper said that because he visited my studio and it’s very easy for me to explain my designs to him because as designers, we share a similar mindset. Should there be a story behind every good design?
Designers should be quiet. They should not tell any story. You find the reason, you find the story from the product you Kenya Hara says that you’re a very different designer – you bought. You would want to go “Aha!” from looking at the obdwell more on the unconscious level than on materials and ject. If I explain it before your eye finds it, that’s very boring. technology. Is that right? The Phaidon book has presented my work in such a way because I’m a very quiet person who doesn’t explain my work. It I find thinking about product design from, let’s say, the per- tells every story as though someone just jumps into the conspective of new materials, is very funny because you’ve not versation and tells the very hidden story. That’s why I like it. used them. But if you live in a rice field with many straws and you have to use the straw to make your house or your bench, Some say you like to design the “unnoticeable”. Would you that’s a natural thing. You have experienced its touch and func- take up a conspicuous project, like Tiffany’s? tion. But to only bring interesting materials to make something new, that’s a complete separation from your life. If I’m thinking I really want to. Of course! They have a very strong icon and I about making your lives better, those materials might help, but want to make another icon for them. Everyone already knows the idea of what fits your life should come first, just as what’s what a Tiffany is and I really want to challenge it because I expressed in the Japanese idiom “tekizai tekisho” (適材適所) – see it more as an object that has existed for a long time in appropriate material for appropriate place. So “appropriate” our lives, there’s already a good relationship between us and is a nice word. I’m always thinking of that. the object, a good essence that we should bring into our design. So I’d like to use that essence, at the same time, modify It seems important for you to experience the object and not it through my design. just make it. How does your idea become the final product? You once said that you took up product design as it’s about No detour. I just go into it quickly. If I design now, the object making people happy. Does that still hold true? is here an hour later. I have to design 100 to 200 objects at the same time. Thinking is doing. If you are my client and you want Yes, it’s still a very core part of my design life. to discuss issues, then there’s a lot of time to think toward the right answer. But if I bring those issues as homework, there is Visit www.naotofukasawa.com and www.plusminuszero.jp to learn more.
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