Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Fahka Har BN
Fahka Har BN
Muji for several years. I intuitively felt that his participation would be vital to
restructuring Muji’s product quality. It was the 8th of January 2002, when I
brought Mr. Fukasawa to Mr. Tanaka’s office to introduce them. Over Japa-
nese tea and buns, we talked of many things, including the prospect of Mr.
Fukasawa taking care of matters of product design.
“This work kept me up at night, it was so fascinating.” These are
the words of Ikko Tanaka, one of Japan’s most illustrious designers. Our con-
versation took place just three days before his sudden death. So transpired the
11th hour passing of the Muji baton from the senior generation to ours.
The concept of Muji is the offspring of the good rapport between the aes-
thetics of graphic designer Ikko Tanaka and the vision of Seiji Tsutsumi, an
undisputed leader of Japan’s distribution industry. The company came into
existence in the fall of 1980. Its basic concept was the creation of a group of pearance has nothing to do with flavor. It was simply a shifting of priorities
extremely straightforward, low-cost items by thoroughly simplifying the pro- that led to a low-priced dried shiitake product. The same can be said of paper.
duction process. If the bleaching process is skipped, the finish color is pale beige. Muji uses
Muji’s initial slogan, “Lower Priced for a Reason”, was the work of this paper for packaging, labels, and other materials. The thorough effort of
Kazuko Koike, who helped prepare Muji’s debut. Ms. Koike, a well-known simplifying the production process has led to the emergence of a whole list of
curator of contemporary modern art, also acted as a Muji slogan copywriter. products with unparalleled aesthetics. The clear-cut contrast of these products
Muji’s management is unique in that creators and managers carry equal weight with the conventional, excessively produced merchandise of the era affected
in supporting the company’s vision. Rationalizing the production process is a not only Japan, but the rest of the world. Muji products earned the support
common idea today, but Muji’s simplification has never resulted in cheapen- of consumers, who are highly conscious of their living environment, and of
ing. Instead, it has led to the manifestation of aesthetics. Muji, established as opinion leaders, with their sophisticated perception. There are more than 270
a private brand of the Seiyu supermarket, has grown into a solid corporate en- Muji branches in Japan, and more than 6,000 products. Muji also has over-