HARA DESIGN INSTITUTE

東洋の女性の美しさに焦点を当てたムービーは、 肌そのものを澄み渡らせていくというブランドの思想を表象した映像です。 黒い髪とほんのりニュアンスのある肌の色が、繊細な光の中で息づいている情景は、 パッケージや店舗空間のイメージとも呼応しています。 撮影は写真家の上田義彦氏。 ミニマムな要素で構成したウェブサイトは、 ブランドや製品の情報が的確に伝わるとともに、 目的の商品までスムーズに辿り着けるような動線を設計しています。 様々なデザイン展開を括るものとして、 ウェブサイトがブランドの世界観を統合しています。 「mtm labo」ウェブサイトは下記URLよりご覧ください。 https://www.mtmlabo.com/...

Cosmetics brand mtm labo analyzes subtle differences between skins, optimizing skincare products by custom blending for each individual's unique skin.
Hara Design Institute handled visual identity and the design of packages, advertising, stores, and websites for mtm labo's rebranding project.

The mtm labo logo incorporates motion inspired by a balance scale,
expressing the custom-blending process that distinguishes the brand.

Translucent, deep green packages
express the power of life hidden in nature.
Package designs are based on two distinctive, contrasting shapes:
a tall, slim shape and a short, solid shape.

Advertising employs meticulous photography of the plants that provide extracts for custom blending, presented so as to echo the forms of the bottles.

The MUJI to GO mobile store began operating in September 2020. Hara Design Institute was responsible for the concept and the vehicle conversion design.

MUJI to GO is a converted bus based at MUJI NAOETSU, a large store that MUJI recently opened in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. It provides mobile sales of foods and daily necessities to people living in hilly rural areas who find it difficult to visit the store.

MUJI to GO travels round local markets, civic centers and district community spaces. Rather than simply selling products, it functions as a venue that links people together.

MUJI, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2020, has published MUJI BOOK 2. As with MUJI BOOK, published in 2010 on the company's 30th anniversary, Hara Design Institute handled editing and design.

Rather than being a product catalog, MUJI BOOK presented new developments and directions from the company's early days until its maturity, covering MUJI's history and reviewing the archives spanning the company's first three decades. It included multifaceted perspectives, such as the background behind product development and communications.

MUJI BOOK 2 is a record of MUJI during the decade that followed. Over the last ten years, as society underwent major changes, MUJI's practice developed through fastidious reviews of materials, processes, and packaging, and branched out into unique areas, including homes, hotels, and mobility. Today, MUJI is becoming actively involved in local communities while maintaining a global perspective. MUJI BOOK 2 depicts a cross section of MUJI, revealing the diversity of these activities.

The book contains contributions from twenty-nine people who have observed MUJI during this period. The new MUJI emerges from their diverse perspectives.

It can be purchased at the following link.
https://www.muji.com/jp/ja/store/cmdty/detail/9784909098337

Contributors:

Lidewij Edelkoort, Terunobu Fujimori, Naoto Fukasawa, Shin-Ichi Fukuoka, Joe Gebbia, Kenya Hara, Noriko Hayashi, Masaaki Kanai, Naomi Kawase, Alex Kerr, Yasuo Kobayashi, Kazuko Koike, Tina Koyama, John Maeda, Akira Minagawa, Masao Morita, Jasper Morrison, Hiroshi Naito, Chiki Ogiue, Sputniko!, Reiko Sudo, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Takashi Sugimoto, Kinya Tagawa, Tsuyoshi Tane, Shuntaro Tanikawa, Mayumi Tsuruoka, Yoshihiko Ueda, Makoto Umebara, Takeshi Yoro

This simple, clean, waste-minimized design is a clear symbol of MUJI's philosophy. MUJI's product tag system now has a new design to worldwide specifications, enabling it to be used to smoothly manage over 7,000 items at MUJI stores around the world. Hara Design Institute handled the multi-lingual design for the tag system and constructed manuals for system operation. Each tag has attractive, easy-to-see labeling, and the style of the wake (reason) text description that communicates the reasoning behind each product's development can be applied in any language zone.

We renewed the packaging design for MUJI's food line. The revised packages are being introduced along with a new management system,

Making sure to retain text clarity, we paid careful attention to photographs and illustrations, and we reassessed layout and styling. The resulting package designs ardently convey the appeal of each individual product.

Hara Design Institute handled package design for the new versions of Hakkaisan Brewery's popular Daiginjo and Junmai Daiginjo sakes, which began shipping in August 2020.

Hakkaisan Daiginjo, with its mellow, clean taste, and elegant, gentle sweetness, and Hakkaisan Junmai Daiginjo, with its pronounced clarity, clean taste, and elegant, gentle sweetness, are both sakes that enhance any cuisine, created using all the brewing skills and craftsmanship of Hakkaisan Brewery.

Kyuyo Ishikawa provided the calligraphy, using distinctive, nuanced brushwork for Hakkaisan Daiginjo and bold, clear script for Hakkaisan Junmai Daiginjo. The exquisite calligraphy embodies the qualities of each sake, boldly positioning them at the core of the Japanese sake market.

The new design includes English text on the bottle labels, neck labels, and packaging, taking into account the growing popularity of sake in international markets

The 8th Architecture for Dogs exhibition is at Japan House London.
The exhibition is derived from the idea of creating architecture for "man's best friend," thinking from the dog's perspective. Sixteen designs are presented in London, including a new design contributed by architect Asif Khan.

Khan's I SEE YOU ! is made for dogs with black fur. Inspired by the English tradition of handmade felt hats, his architecture takes the form of a seamless felted wool surface. A lot of dogs with black fur have white patches, and the white markings stand out beautifully against the black form.

See the website for more details:

Architecture for Dogs
http://architecturefordogs.com

Japan House London
https://www.japanhouselondon.uk

MUJI's corporate message campaign ads are viewable on the campaign webpage. Sixty-second videos present cleaning activities found around the world. These videos are streamed as a series of five movies, releasing one every two weeks, together with additional video to show details of the individual situations.

https://www.muji.com/message/2020/

MUJI has published a book called CLEANING to coincide with its corporate message campaign. The 504-page photo book presents cleaning activities found around the world, classified into sixteen categories, such as "wipe," "scrub," and "remove."

The purpose of the book is not to cover all aspect of cleaning but rather to take an objective look at this mysterious activity and consider why people have engaged so industriously in this kind of behavior since ancient times. In a sense, it is a by-product of MUJI's advertising campaign. It also includes pages that provide a new overview of cleaning tools.

CLEANING is already on sale in Japan at 123 MUJI stores and at MUJI's online store ahead of general availability. It goes on sale at all MUJI stores and general bookstores in Japan in early October 2020, with sales outside Japan planned for November onwards.

The book can be purchased at the following Japanese language webpage.
https://www.muji.com/jp/ja/store/cmdty/detail/9784909098290