Design Hero Project

Sophomore Sprint C-Studio

Selecting Designer

• Naoto Fukasawa
• Dietre Rams
• Saul Bass

I am interested in learning more about Fukasawa and Dietre Rams because they’re design philosophy of pursuing simplicity. I really enjoy Saul Bass’ use of metaphor in his work, especially in his movie sequence.

Mood board

Things that I really want to communicate through my poster

• Products that Fukasawa made: MUJI wall-hanging CD player, furniture, kitchen appliances, etc. (everyday items that communicate the idea of “without thought” or “super normal.”
• The quote “Design dissolves in behavior.” I want this quote to be the guiding phrase that directs the way I design this poster. I want to create something that is natural and not forcing a behavior the audience.
• I think that choosing the right color or lack of color would be one of the biggest challenges in this project, because meanwhile Naoto Fukasawa works a lot in greyscale, he still uses some strong, vibrant colors when need be.
• I noticed that in all of Fukasawa’s documented product designs, the texture of the product is really articulated and it is really easy to imagine what the object would feel like just by looking at it. I wonder how I will be able to translate this aspect onto 2D surface.

Iteration 2

Feb 07

Iteration 3

Changes to make:

• Making the CD player the main character of this poster — don’t need to include other works
• Incorporating timeline instead of a callout, referencing the CD player in the timeline
• Next challenge: how to incorporate portrait?
  I really like the current portrait image I’m using, so I will still try to incorporate that picture into this poster.

color experimentation

Red is an emphasis color that Fukasawa often uses in his work. I thought the red might be a little heavy so I also tried yellow, but I think red is a better color that shows his personality and characteristics of his design.

image filter on photoshop

The image of the designer’s portrait is originally a black and white photo, so I tried using a sepia filter to express his skintone, but I will try to recolor this image to make it more natural.

font experiement

close-to final iteration

Iteration 3 feedback:

• Typeface: “design” looks too much like the SoD font, so it is a little bit confusing in communicating the quote as a whole. I might play with leading a little bit, and try Acumin Pro, which is another font my designer uses, and see how that looks like.
• Technical: The resolution of the portrait and the CD player needs to be enhanced and photoshopped better. Possibly more contrast in the image?

BOOKLET

SKETCHES

Design elements I kept in mind to use as metaphor:

• Curved edged rectangles
• straight line
• strict grids, etc.
• Very minimalistic use of color

Content that I want to incoporate:

• I want each page or spread to begin with a quote or a part of a quote by Fukasawa, as he is really good with words. I want the table of contents to almost be a short paragraph that summarizes all the things that he’s said.

Thoughts on the sketches

I think I will be using a lot of white space to visualize the simple design philosophy of Naoto Fukasawa, and I’m struggling to think of ways to incorporate a lot of content in concise, meaningful ways without creating confusion. So far, I like the idea of using a bookshelf create by Fukasawa as the front and back covers.

Feedback after iteration 3:

• I could really communicate Naoto Fukasawa’s works and philosophy by contributing more spreads to his work than other parts of his careers like the exhibit or his legacy.
• The tabel of contents page could be less contained; I don’t need to show the cd player 3times throughout.

iteration 4

• re-selecting the main image for the nature slide.

iteration 5