Watch Project Produced by ISSEY MIYAKE
Under the license agreement concluded between Seiko Instruments Inc. (SII) and Miyake Design Office in September 2001, SII orchestrates the entire processes of this project from development and manufacturing to sales. ISSEY MIYAKE, on the other hand, selects a designer from among those who have accomplished distinguished works in their respective fields of designing, and inspires the designer to create a watch design that depicts his/her rendition of “ISSEY MIYAKE’s World”. Then, ISSEY MIYAKE and SII’s project team work in collaboration to elaborate a new series of ISSEY MIYAKE watches. So far, five prominent designers participated in this project, and a total of seven design series were created to be included in this watch collection. SII will continue to release new watches of this series in the future, which will embody the world of ISSEY MIYAKE in various styles and forms that world-renowned creative designers have to offer.
DESIGNER
Naoto Fukasawa
Product Designer
Born in Yamanashi Prefecture in 1956. Graduated from Tama Art University in 1980. After having acted as the head of the American company IDEO’s Tokyo office, he established Naoto Fukasawa Design in 2003. Representative works include MUJI’S CD player (part of the permanent collection, MoMA New York), the mobile phones “Infobar” and “neon” and the ±0 brand of household electrical appliances and sundries. In recent years, he has released a host of new works with Italian companies B&B Italia, Driade, Magis, Artemide, Danese and Boffi, as well as in Germany and Northern Europe, and they have garnered a great deal of attention. In the past, he has won over fifty awards, including the American IDEA Gold Award, the German if Gold Award, the British D&AD Gold Award, the Mainichi Design Award and the 5th Oribe Award. He is a professor as Musashino Art University and a visiting lecturer at Tama Art University. He has authored such books as “An Outline of Design” (TOTO) and co-authored others such as “The Ecological Approach to Design” (Tokyo Shoseki).
Jasper Morrison
Product Designer
Jasper Morrison was born in London in 1959, and graduated in Design at Kingston Polytechnic Design School, London (1979-82 BA (Des.)) and The Royal College of Art for Postgraduate studies (1982-85 MA (Des.) RCA). In 1984 he studied at Berlins HdK on a Scholarship. In 1986 he set up an Office for Design in London.
Today Jasper Morrison Ltd. consists of three design offices, a main office in London and two branch offices: one in Paris (opened 2002) and one in Tokyo (opened 2007). Services offered by Jasper Morrison Ltd. are wide ranging, from furniture to tableware and kitchen products and lighting, electronics and appliance design, designs for public space and more recently watches, clocks & shoes. In 2005, founding of Super Normal with Naoto Fukasawa. In June 2006, first Super Normal exhibition in Tokyo. In 2009 opening of the Jasper Morrison Limited Shop in London and in 2011 the launch of a webshop www.jaspermorrison.com/shop/ Our clients are worldwide, united as leaders in their individual fields.
Satoshi Wada
Product Designer
Born in Tokyo in 1961,Satoshi Wada joined Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. in 1984 after graduating from Musashino Art University (Tokyo,Japan).He also studied abroad at Royal College od Art (London,UK)from 1989 through 1991. In 1998, he began working for Audi AG/ Audi design in Germany and contributed to the Audi brands’ global expantion by designing the A5 that was called “the most beatiful coupé in the world.” He became independent to establish his own design studio “ SWdesign TOKYO ” in 2009. Since then, he has been focusing on not only the development of new vehicle designs, but also the design with his concept of “ MINIMAL × FUTURE” to create new simplicity in the products and life-styles of the new era.
Yves Béhar
Industrial Designer
Born in Switzerland in 1967. Graduated from Art Center College of Design. Established his design studio, fuseproject in 1999. He brings a humanistic approach to his work with the goal of creating projects that are deeply in-tune with the needs of a sustainable future. He also combines technological innovation with design. His major work includes the XO laptop for OLPC (One Laptop Per Child), LEAF LED light for Herman Miller, and “Jawbone” Bluetooth headset for Aliph. His innovative designs have garnered more than 150 awards, and his work is in the permanent collections of museums including the Musée Nationale d’Art Moderne / Centre Pompidou, MoMA, the Munich Museum of Applied Arts and the Chicago Art Institute.
Ross Lovegrove
Industrial Designer
Ross Lovegrove is a designer and visionary who’s work is considered to be at the very apex of stimulating a profound change in the physicality of our three dimensional World. There is always embedded a deeply human and resourceful approach in his designs, which project an optimism, and innovative vitality in everything he touches from cameras to cars to trains, aviation and architecture..
Born 1958 in Cardiff, Wales. Graduated from Manchester Polytechnic with 1st Class BA Hons Industrial Design in 1980.
Master of Design of Royal College of Art, London in 1983.
In the early 80’s worked as a designer for Frog Design in West Germany on projects such as Walkmans for Sony, Computers for Apple Computers.
Invited to join the Atelier de Nimes along with Jean Nouvel and Phillipe Stark, consulting to amongst others Cacharel, Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Dupont.
Returning to London in 1986 he has completed numerous international projects.
© John RossTokujin Yoshioka
Designer
At the Salone Internazionale del Mobile di Milano in 2002, he released chairs called "Honey-pop" (selected for the permanent collection of MoMA) and "Tokyo-pop." Also, he worked on installations at dadriade based on the concept of future Japanese gardens. In 2004, he released a chair called "KISS ME GOODBYE." Other experimental designs across diverse fields include the illuminator "ToFU" (2000), and the street furniture "Chair Disappearing in the Rain" (2003) and "SOFT BOING" (2004). He has received numerous prizes, including the A&W AWARD - THE COMING DESIGNER FOR THE FUTURE (2001) and the 2001 Mainichi Design Award (2002).
Harri Koskinen
Designer
Harri Koshinen is an industrial designer gaining fame around the world. His "Block Lamp" is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City.The second generation VAKIO 2 is being shown at the SII/Issey Miyake booth at Basel World 2004, April 15 - 22, 2004, in Basel, Switzerland. In the future you'll be able to enjoy even more exciting VAKIO designs, each expressing the spirit and modern sensibility of Issey Miyake.
Shunji Yamanaka
Designer
After graduating from the School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo in 1982, Shunji Yamanaka worked for Nissan Motor's Design Center. He became a freelance industrial designer in 1987, designing advanced devices ranging from wristwatches to railway cars. He served as a guest assistant professor at the University of Tokyo's School of Engineering in 1991, and he established Leading Edge Design Corporation in 1994.