The Philosophical Concept Of "Indifference" In MUJI Products

Koike Ichiko, one of Muji's design consultants, received an air letter from Liberty 20 years ago.

London's Department of Liberty

In name, it once occupied a place in the history of British design.

A female executive of the Department Store invited Japanese brand Muji as a representative of Oriental design to attend the commemoration of the 110th Anniversary creation of the liberty.

At that time, Muji was not yet expanding in overseas markets outside Japan. It attracted the design of MUJI products and advertising posters, which is considered to be a representative of modern oriental aesthetics.

If we use the Chinese Internet hot words in recent years to define this so-called "modern oriental aesthetics", it is "indifference".

The image of pure desire, cool colors and empty objects is the image and brand image of Muji.

If consumers can associate a noun, thing or color with a brand, then the brand can at least be considered to be outstanding in marketing.

For example, Coca-Cola's red and wavy fonts, coffee and Starbucks, and "sex indifference" and Muji.

The origin of "cool" style and the designer behind it, Tanaka.

In 1980, Muji was born in an exchange of ideas between Mr. two and Mr.

Perhaps you have heard this story many times. In 1980s, Japanese society was plunged into the pursuit of material desires, and the economy began to bubble.

A brand can be printed on the product to achieve a premium.

At that time, there was such a joke in Japan that if the logo "CHANEL" was embroidered on the beautiful cover of the toilet roll, it would sell well.

"It is important that commodity design must accurately convey the value of the commodity itself."

Koike Ichiko said, "if Chanel lady is alive now, he will be surprised to come to the bathroom in Tokyo and see that his name is used in the bathroom."

The birth of Muji has brought another consumption direction to the materialistic Japanese middle class, which reminds people to appreciate raw materials and simple designs.

It removes trademarks, removes all unnecessary processing and colors, and simple packaging - simple to only material and function itself.

And this style has become its own.

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How to pass this idea is a challenge encountered by Muji at that time.

Like other commercial companies, it has two channels that can be leveraged -- product design itself and advertising.

MUJI has 13 main anonymous designers to design products that conform to its brand concept, while advertising is responsible by Tanaka, a Japanese palace designer.

Fashion designer Lssey Miyake talked about Tanaka: "when I was studying graphic design, Tanaka was already a god like person."

You can understand his prominent position in the Japanese design field.

Tanaka designed the first ad for the imprint, a poster printed on a kraft paper, and the branded hue of an imprint.

He used the typical Japanese historical play to emphasize the typical picture of "correct conclusions", which is to hold a brand and emphasize the imprint, that is.

"Although the momentum of the bubble economy is still rising, consumers want to have a stable life base, so they have great interest in our products."

Koike Ichiko's interpretation highlights the significance of products.

Tanaka once led the advertising style of Muji for decades.

He is accustomed to using symbolic visual images to tell consumers that raw materials themselves are more important than strong colors or decorations.

This is also a Muji product model.

The systematization of "cool" style and the original design of second designers.

Until August 2001, another outstanding designer in Japan appeared in Tanaka's office, which may be the most critical time for Muji brand.

They ate Japanese tea and chatted with another product designer, Fukazawa Naohito, about the future design of the brand.

In the face of the original research, he accepted Tanaka's invitation to enter the Muji Consultative Committee. The original designer and Fukazawa Naohito, the two designers who had great influence on Muji today, joined the brand on that day.

3 days after that meeting, Tanaka suddenly died of illness.

In some cases, the work of visualization of Muji concept quickly fell to the original stage.

Now you see print ads in Muji shop, and all official channels, which actually come to the original hand, including the huge earth poster at the gate of the 799 largest store in Huaihai, Shanghai, China's largest flagship store.

Design concept 1: use the concept of "empty" to show simplicity.

In 2003, he first encountered the first challenge after joining Muji. He was looking for a perfect horizon.

It's easy to find it from the sea level, but the perfect horizon between the earth and the sky is hard to find.

He was filming a set of brand posters for Muji. He thought the horizon did not represent anything, but it could accommodate everything.

At present, people understand that the "simplicity" of Muji is actually the product of western modernism, which is different from all the "simplicity" in Japanese tradition.

Original research thinks that "simplicity" can allow consumers to play freely and allow all kinds of situations to emerge.

He called this inclusiveness "Empty".

"MUJI products are basically the concept of emptiness."

"But in advertising, I do not want to use the sentence to explain repeatedly, but to use effective visual works, so that consumers can feel and wake up in the instant of visual works they see," he said.

So the concept of horizon was put forward. He and photographer Fujii Ho consulted all kinds of data, and finally found two flawless horizons in the Saline Lake of Bolivia and the prairie of Mongolia.

It might be hard for him to forget the most difficult work of his career. He worked in Bolivia for 5 days at high altitude, and drove 4 hours to the lake center every day, just to photograph a perfect horizon.

This series of ads has become one of the Muji's visual identities. Many people in the Chinese question and answer social network have discussed this group of advertisements as a case.

"I have been greatly inspired by the production of this advertisement and deepened my thinking of Muji.

When the world's major brands strive to produce advertisements that give people the desire to buy, Muji provides "empty" information.

This advertising gesture starts with this horizon advertisement.

The original research said.

Design concept two: "natural"

When asked how to make a single product advertisement with Muji style, his answer was: "naturally it becomes like this."

If you pay enough attention to this brand, you should have seen an advertisement picture of a bed and a chair in its product catalog.

"This advertisement shows that Muji is automatically formed by focusing highly on a specific purpose and eliminating all unnecessary things."

The original research said.

This natural and succinct style seems very simple, but no brand can imitate the accuracy.

Because, of course, this is not true "natural" formation.

Behind this is a lot of small details of design, but they are all centered around nature.

For example, when designing a bed or chair, Muji is considering the most natural and comfortable state of the back of the person, so the inclination of the back of the bed and the back of the chair is the same as "natural".

Only when there is some kind of similarity between products, can we have a harmonious and natural sense of beauty.

"MUJI products" naturally form a tone, creating an atmosphere of advertising and photos.

Clothing is the same, so is picture and advertisement. Muji is at a distance from fashion.

The closer to fashion, the faster the outmoded.

So you will find that its advertising posters are not as frequent as other brands.

When Tanaka was in charge of Muji advertising, there were only 40 brands of the product.

And the original research needs to face about 5000 kinds of single products.

To make these single products with the same "natural" temperament is the greatest success of Muji design.

Design concept three: the concept of "home"

"Muji can promote a way of life, but that does not mean promoting MUJI products to make a product like this," he said. "In the next year after finishing the horizon advertisement, my intuition tells me that I want to take pictures of my family.

It's not an ordinary home, it's a primitive home. "

The following two groups of pictures were taken in Morocco and Cameroon respectively. The original is the original intention of Muji, and some of the complex elements of commercial products are lost. The concept of home should be in line with the original idea of lifestyle and residence.

Cameroon's primitive villages do not have water and electricity, and everything is the most natural state.

When lunch time began to appear white smoke in the village houses, he felt that he had seen the simplest appearance of life.

"Empty", "natural" and "home" are the 3 most important concepts in the design and vision system of Muji.

These concepts convey the concept and characteristics of MUJI products to the world with the tonality of the East and the tonality of Japanese aesthetics, so as to form their own brand image through product design and advertising vision system.

On the occasion of Muji's entry into Europe 25th anniversary, the brand was also held in London and Milan in 2016.

This is how we summed up the visual system of advertising.

But behind every product, the lifestyle introduced by Muji can also be seen and blurred.

For Muji, two kinds of scenes are indispensable, supporting the display of global vision (like the horizon and home) or focusing on a toothbrush or a single item.