Inspiring Designer – Naoto Fukasawa

FUKASAWA

  Japanese industrial designer, Naoto Fukasawa was born in 1956. He started Naoto Fukasawa Design in 2003 and was known for his famous works for MUJI. He also cooperated with many other world-leading design company over the world and gained a great reputation. Products designed range from electronics, furniture to lighting and wearable, etc. His distinct design style definitely has influential impacts over the design industry.

  Personally I truly appreciated his clean yet elegant design. They are simple but well thought of and provide pleasant visual aesthetics as well as user experience, just as stated on his website, “Designing shape is to give form to values that people tacitly share and wish for.” He aimed to approach essential values of things and promoted his concept of “Without Thought”. He observes and finds subconscious behavior of users and shares his thoughts through workshops.

 


 CD Player/1998/MUJI

  This is probably one of his most representative designs. This CD Player is so easy to understand that almost everyone would react immediately to it by simply putting the CD in and pulling the string. This design incorporated our common understanding of a fan and subconscious intention of pulling down the string. It was a truly brilliant expression of his own observation and understanding of people. In comparison, many electronic products tend to get too complicated and overwhelming with their buttons and icons. This resulted from lack of confidence in their design, in my opinion. Good design should be true to themselves and have no need to eagerly show the users all the functionality of them .