Name: Japanese designer Oki Sato on his playful approach to design | Braun | British GQ
Uploaded: 2025-06-02T11:18:36.000Z
Duration: 8 min
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Past simple

The Japanese philosopher Yonagi Suetsu once said, make beautiful things, make things to be used, eliminate anything that is unnecessary.

Present continuous

These are some of the questions I'm going to be discussing with prolific designer and architect Oki Sato.

Oki Sato is known for working on roughly 400 projects at a time.

His playful yet simple style has made him one of the world's most in-demand designers.

I'm on my way to his Nendo studio in the heart of Tokyo to find out what drives him to design.

What does a day in the life of Oki Sato look like?

Basically I wake up, I eat, I design, drink coffee and sleep and that's it I guess.

Some designers enjoy working on certain kind of vegetables or kind of meat or whatever, but I'm more like a mother trying to cook something and you open the refrigerator and you find bits and pieces of things and then you just come up with new ideas.

I want the lighting mainly above the house in the middle.

I think we should have like a grid so that we can control.

When I start sketching, when I see physical mock-ups, when I see my products in the stores, all these moments are so magical for me.

I've been studying architecture for six years and I really didn't understand what design was all about.

Architects were designing teacups and interior designers were designing cars and everyone was very borderless.

I felt that this was the place that I wanted to be.

I start from sketches, like a stupid manga sketch.

Then we move on directly into 3D modelling.

Whether it's a small chewing gum or an architectural project, it's all the same to me.

Do you agree in principle with the famous Dieter Rahm's maxim, less but better?

It's not about minimalism but the idea has to be very simple.

But in my case, an object has to be functional but has to be fun because the word fun is inside of function.

I guess I'm not really interested in colours or aesthetics but it's the story behind the object.

An object has to be talkative, it has to tell an interesting story.

I want to have my ideas to be like sushi or sashimi I guess.

Fresh, you just cut the raw fish and then you serve.

You should not hold your ideas too long or you should not love your ideas too much.

How and where do you find inspiration as a designer?

I walk my dog the same route, I drink the same coffee.

When you repeat things you start to notice the slight differences in everyday life.

A project has to be environmentally friendly, it has to be user friendly.

It's one of the most important factors that you have to think about when you are a designer.

One of the projects that I worked on quite recently was a zipper.

I came up with five different zippers, crossing or a zipper that you can open and close three different fabrics.

There's so many space for new ideas or even these simple and everyday objects.

We cannot work on 300 projects without our 3D printers in our studio, but technology is very dangerous at the same time.

Technology allows you to create things beyond your imagination and then you start to lose the most important thing of design, which is the core idea.

I think technology is about making things flat and smooth and making things perfect.

What makes people interesting is that people are not perfect.

Perfection makes things boring in the end.

I think the next step for technology is how to make them not smart but stupid in the end.

That is a capsule toy figure which is kind of famous, it's kind of popular in Japan.

So it's a toy that encourages a child to be a designer?

Quite recently we made a picture book for children as well.

So it's about explaining what a handle is or what the rim is or how to see things from a different point of view.

And then the cup starts to think, how can we stir the coffee in the mug cup?

The book maintains that minimal aesthetic but with that whimsical, playful nature, I think it's brilliant.

It's always about solving problems in a very pleasant way, in a fun way.

You bring a lot of emotion into what you do.

Of course function is important but in the end it's all about emotions, and you're definitely right.

You have a very close working relationship with the fashion legend...

One of the most incredible designers ever to grace the planet.

He said that there was so much paper thrown away and I want you to design a chair for me.

I just received the roll of thrown away paper from the factory and then I cut and peeled, cut and peeled, and in the end it became something like a chair.

I told Mr. Miyake that this is not finished.

And he said that, no, you have to stop here.

When you feel that it's completed, it's done, it's finished.

That opened up a lot of doors for myself, a lot of freedom for me.

Sometimes an idea for a mobile phone ends up for an interior design, or an idea for architecture ends up as a chair.

Designers should go with the flow in the end.

Would you have any advice for the designers of the future?

You start from a single idea, you think maybe this is better or I can make it better this way, and then you go all the way and you end up in the first idea.

So when you get lost in a project, choose the first one because it's the correct one.

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Japanese designer Oki Sato on his playful approach to design | Braun | British GQ

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