Naoto Fukasawa designs for a wide range of leading brands worldwide in Italy, Germany, America, Switzerland, Spain, China, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, France, Portugal, Sweden and Finland, as well as consulting and designing for local Japanese companies. His designs span across precision electronic equipment to furniture, interior spaces and architecture.

Fukasawa is well recognized for his designs as well as his design philosophies. He uses terms such as "design dissolving in behaviour", "centre of consciousness", "normality", "outline" and "archetype" – philosophies he continues to put into practice in his designs.

In 2007, Fukasawa was awarded the title of Hon RDI (Honorable Royal Designer for Industry) by the Royal Society of Arts in London. He has won several prizes for design in Europe and in the USA, and is the author of books about design. In 2007, Phaidon dedicated a monograph to him.

His director and design advisory positions include; curator of The Japan Folk Crafts Museum, professor in the Integrated Design Department at Tama Art University, a director of 21_21 Design Sight, on the design advisory board of Muji, art director of Maruni, on the judging panel of the Nikkei Shimbun’s Superior Products and Services Award and a member of the screening committee for the Mainichi Design Award.

Naoto Fukasawa partnered with Fantini to design an iconic new tapware collection where the taps and mixers become discs and cylinders, reminiscent of the forms found on the controls on a stereo. The collection is simple and clean in design, and manufactured to the highest quality standard by the jewellers of the tapware industry, Fantini.

"I want to make aesthetic objects, beautiful forms, it’s not about superficial qualities, but about capturing solid force. That is what I think about when I make things."

Timeline

1956
Naoto Fukasawa was born in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan.

1980
Graduated from Tama Art University’s Product Design Department

1989
Moved to the United States and joined the San Francisco design firm ID Two (now IDEO San Francisco). He worked on a number of products related to Silicon Valley computing and electronics technology.

1996
Returned to Japan to start and head up IDEO’s Tokyo office. He came up with the design for a wall-mounted CD player, that was taken up and released by MUJI and has proved popular world-wide.

1999
Began annual workshops "Without Thought" and continues to announce the fruits of these workshops in book form. These workshops were a vehicle for Fukasawa to share that the impetus for design is found in people’s unconscious behavior, hence the name "Without Thought"

2004
MoMA in New York selected MUJI’s CD player for its permanent collection.

2006
Established "Super Normal" with Jasper Morrison.

2007
Awarded the title of Hon RDI- Honorable Royal Designer for Industry (Royal Society of Arts).

2010
Good Design Award chairman until 2014.

2012
On the judging committee of the Braun Prize.

2017
Became a member of the judging committee for the Loewe Craft Prize.

2018
Awarded the Isamu Noguchi Award. Watch the video to learn more about Naoto Fukasawa and his design philosophy as a recipient of the 2018 Isamu Noguchi Award;

Awards

"Design dissolving in behaviour."

Fukasawa Collection by Naoto Fukasawa

An iconic new tapware collection where the taps and mixers become discs and cylinders, reminiscent of the forms found on the controls on a stereo. The collection is simple and clean in design, and manufactured to the highest quality standards.

View Fukasawa Collection

View Fantini Collection