Naoto FUKASAWA
- Date of birth
1956
- Nationality
Japanese
- Distinguishing features
EDIDA DESIGNER OF THE YEAR 2008. Fukasawa is amongst the elite in the field of Japanese design, with a focus on simplification and technology. He works with a broad range of projects from micro-electronics to furniture, interior design as well as design consultancy.
- website
Biography
Fukasawa is well respected for his outstanding aesthetics in sculpting forms and his devotion to design with simplicity. Today he collaborates with globally renowned brands from Europe, North America, Scandinavia and Asian countries. At the same time he also provides consultancy services to major industries and corporations in Japan, and has brought much success to the respective companies. This work varies from design strategy development, brand development, design consultancy and product development. The inspiration for his first design was found in the human subconscious, a concept he named ‘Without Thought’. Its idea is to capture the expression and essence of objects penetrated beyond the designer field, and it is highly respected internationally. Since 1999, he has held ‘Without Thought’ workshops on an annual basis for Japanese corporate designers, each of which is publicly exhibited alongside catalogue books. Fukasawa has won over 70 titles including the Japan Good design award, IDEA awards in the U.S, gold prize in IF design award and Red Dot award in Germany, gold prize in D&AD award in the UK, Mainichi Design award and the Oribe award in Japan, among others. His Muji wall mounted CD player, humidifier for Plus Minus Zero, Infobar and neon mobile phones for au/KDDI are selected for MOMA permanent design collections. In 2003, Fukasawa established the brand Plus Minus Zero. In 2007, he was awarded the title of Honourable Royal Designer for Industry by RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) in the UK. In 2014, he was invited by the Tang prize foundation to participate in an invite-only competition for designing its award medal and, where he received the gold prize. He is a director of the 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo, an advisory board member for Muji and an art director for Maruni wood Industries.
He was also the chairman for the Japan Good Design award jury between 2010 and 2014.
Fukasawa is currently a professor at the Department of Integrated Design at Tama Art University. In 2007 he established “Super Normal” with Jasper Morrison. Since July 2012, he has been acting as the fifth chairman for the Japan Folk Craft Museum.
