Naoto Fukasawa

Naoto Fukasawa (深澤 直人; born 1956) is a contemporary Japanese industrial designer, author, and educator, and works within product and furniture design. He is most well known for his product design work with the Japanese retail company MUJI and companies such as Herman Miller, Alessi, B&B Italia, and Magis. 
Biography.
Fukasawa was born in Kōfu, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan in 1956. At a young age, he was inspired to study product design from a magazine that introduced professional jobs. He graduated in 1980 from Tama Art University with a degree in product design.After graduating, Fukasawa worked as a product developer at Seiko Epson until 1988, before working at ID Two, a predecessor to the design consulting firm IDEO in San Francisco, California and later establishing the IDEO Tokyo office in 1996. During this time he collaborated with the English industrial designer Sam Hecht. In 2002, Fukasawa became a MUJI advisory board member and worked on the development of many of their products.After leaving IDEO, he would establish his own independent firm Naoto Fukasawa Design in 2003, focused around design consultation. In the same year, Fukasawa founded the "±0" (Plus Minus Zero) brand of household electrical appliances and sundries, focused around the design of goods that are seen as "just right". In recent years, he has released a host of new works with Italian companies B&B Italia, Driade, Magis, Artemide, Danese, and Boffi, as well as in Germany and Northern Europe, and have garnered a great deal of attention.
As of 2012, he is one of the co-directors of 21 21 DESIGN SIGHT, Japan's first design museum.
Fukasawa previously taught at Musashino Art University. Since 2014, he has taught Integrated Design at Tama Art University as a professor.
Many of his works are included in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) including, MUJI's Wall-mounted Compact Disc Player (1999), Neon Cellular Phone by KDDI Corporation (2005), and Infobar Cellular Phone by KDDI Corporation (2003).
Fukasawa has been described by Bloomberg Businessweek as one of the world's most influential designers.
Design Approach.
Naoto Fukasawa's design approach is centered around the relationship between design and behavior, using terms such as "design dissolving in behavior", "center of conciousness", "normality", "outline" and "archetype" to describe his approach. His approach relies on observing how people act and react everyday and finding solutions in these behaviors that link the design to the person. In his 2018 monograph, Fukasawa describes design as "attributing countenance to an object", in which the design is accompanied by the environment and the context. 
Fukasawa coined the term "Without Thought" as a philosophy for how design can be found in people's unconscious behavior. Without Thought refers to how objects can feel important when seen for the first time, but only have their initial essence realized when being used. Ever since creating the term, Fukasawa has organized workshops to share his approach to other designers. 
In 2006, Fukasawa curated the exhibition "Super Normal" alongside English furniture designer Jasper Morrison to define 'Super Normal', presenting 200 objects that were ordinary or anonymously designed devoid of gimmicks or branding. Items presented in the exhibition ranged from notable objects such as the Bialetti expresso maker to anonymously designed and mass produced objects such as disposable plastic plates. The term defines objects as being absent of identity, originality, and elements that leave an impression, leading to objects that appear ordinary. This design concept can be seen reflected in Fukasawa's work with Muji, where products are created with an anti-branding approach of not presenting any traits that characterize the object. 
Select awards.
Fukasawa has won over fifty awards, including the American IDEA Gold Award, the German iF Gold Award, the British D&AD Gold Award, the Mainichi Design Award and the 5th Oribe Award.
Works.
Naoto Fukasawa has consulted and designed for several companies, ranging from home appliance retailers to furniture manufacturers. Companies that he has designed for include: