Monday May 13, 2013
The craft of making things
The ‘faces stamp’ clinched a design award and led to the creation of Zuko. AT first glance, Zuko Labo seems like your typical zakka boutique, stocking cute incense holders shaped like wooden houses with chimneys, quirky hiragana-shaped bookmarks, and pared-down but sleek leather namecard holders.
(For the uninitiated, zakka is a design and fashion phenomenon that descended on Japan and spread globally about a decade ago. The term means anything and everything that jazzes up your home, life and outlook, and “the art of seeing the savvy in the ordinary and mundane”, as a New York Times writer describes it.)
Take a closer look, though, and the refurbished pre-war, folk-style house in Sakai city, Osaka Prefecture, looks more like someone’s stylish abode rather than a retail outlet.
On top of the products created by founders Daimon Kanno and Mamoru Fukui, like the incense burners, ink stamps, namecard holders and bookmarks, the shop carries a melange of designer products, like Noguchi’s Akari paper lamps or Cubomi wool/angora stoles by Osaka clothing brand Pssst, sir.
Co-founder of Zuko Labo and product designer Daimon Kanno wants to remind folks of the joy of making things/crafts. Product designers Kanno and Fukui chose the name of their shop to represent their approach to design: in Japanese, “zukou” means arts and crafts and “labo” means laboratory.
“The word, ‘zukou’ reminds us of the joy of craft-making, something we tend to forget when we become adults,” says Kanno who heads Zuko Labo’s product design company, Design Office A4.
After graduating from university with a design degree, Kanno found he didn’t have any opportunity to create prototypes or products by hand.
“We conceptualise our ideas on computers,” he explains. “I realised I’d rather design and make something with my hands. Zuko was the natural progression.”
It helped that the pair snagged ¥3mil (RM90,048) in prize money when they won a design competition for their ink stamp.
Shachihata, Japan’s leading manufacturer of stamp pads and stationery, holds the annual competition. The theme was to design a “tool that can enhance the possibility of communication”.
“I think the different expressions on a human face can convey that kind of communication, hence the ‘faces stamp’ made from silicone was born,” says Kanno. Today, the faces stamp is still one of their bestselling items.
Zuko also serves as a platform for the duo to showcase their designer friends’ creations and introduce the designers and stories behind the products to customers. “Our philosophy is to connect people and products, and people and people through the art of making things,” he adds.
Zuko organises monthly workshops to teach customers to make utilitarian crafts or knick-knacks like decorative magnets, printed T-shirts or customised recycling bags. They have taken their workshops to Osaka and Tokyo.
“Essentially, we just want people to rediscover the pleasure and joy of making things with your hands,” says Kanno whose design ethos is characterised by functional beauty – “With functionality, beauty appears inevitably.”
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