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. “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]
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. 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.
[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
