Things in Themselves
Being a product design fan and having lived in Japan for some time have instilled in me a deep appreciation for the work of Naoto Fukasawa.
We have the toaster (shown above), kettle and rice cooker that he designed for MUJI in our kitchen. And piles of his books.
Currently, the Philadelphia Museum of Art has dedicated one of its galleries to a retrospective of Fukasawa's work.
The designs are shown in the context of his process and thinking - from concept sketches to manufactured goods.
Some of his thoughts about design like "Super Normal" and "Without Thought" have become so widely accepted that it's interesting to see them come back to their source.
There is no printed guide to take home, so here are a few re-types from the exhibition walls:
Super Normal
The paradox of "super normal" is rooted in Fukasawa's friendship and collaboration with Jasper Morrison (born 1959). Both designers have a longstanding interest in "anonymous" design - referring to the many useful things in the world that perform their functions almost invisibly, without a high-profile designer's self-expression. Finding simple beauty in the straightforward utility of such objects and seeking out work by contemporary designers that showed a similar spirit of modesty and usefulness, Fukasawa and Morrison mounted an exhibition in 2006 at Axis Gallery in Tokyo that embraced the idea of "normalness," accompanied by a publication that offered a manifesto for the same type of self-effacing design. This ethos of humility and quiet functionality continues to inform much of Fukasawa's work.
Without Thought
With his deep experience as a design consultant, Fukasawa sees people's unconscious behaviors - leaning against a railing, reaching for a phone, resting an umbrella against a wall - as a vital source for inspiration. His close attention to daily habits and involuntary gestures, and how these patterns affect our environments, underpins the philosophy he calls "design without thought". His approach strives to create functional items that can be used intuitively, with as little instruction or conscious effort as possible. This has been long standing goal for designers in the realm of complex objects like consumer electronics, but Fukasawa argues that even for categories of simple things, designers can find surprising insight in careful observation of everyday human interactions.
If you are a design otaku and you haven’t seen it yet, you need to go see Naoto Fukasawa Things in Themselves before it closes on April 20th!
Toaster image courtesy of NAOTO FUKASAWA DESIGN.
