Feelin' Muji

Satoshi Yasui is the kind of designer who can riff on any product--including socks. Not just any socks, but comfy ones with a 90-degree heel, knit for a perfect fit by Czech grandmothers, that he and his 15-member design team at Muji transformed into one of the Japanese retailer's roughly 7,000 products. "They don't fall off like regular socks, which are usually manufactured with a 120-degree angle," explains Yasui, lifting one cuff of his black jeans to reveal a pair. Yasui--who has been with Muji since the Seiyu supermarket chain created it as a private brand in 1980--says that sometimes the original, rather than the evolved product, is best. "Many products are buried in traditions and culture, and when you rediscover them, they are universal, anonymous."

Anonymity is an odd thing for a brand to strive for, but not if you are a "no brand" brand. The goal of Yasui's team is to define Muji by design: to create and refine products toward ultimate simplicity and functionality. Muji is characterized by neutral tones and a bare-bones chic infused into everything from food to beds to bicycles--even a house. Muji ("no mark" in Japanese) screams minimalism to anyone who has entered one of its 433 locations in 16 countries.

So it comes as no surprise that the creed of the design team is "The design that is not designed." That could be a Zen nightmare, but Yasui explains: "It might sound sarcastic, but it is the ultimate design--anonymous, free of décor, without mark. It is not a monster of functions. It is simple." The team's official name--Planning & Design/Material Development Office--hardly captures the creativity that directs Muji's household division, which includes furniture, housewares, stationery, fabric, electronics and health and beauty. The team's designs drive 55% of Muji's sales, about $1.5 billion in 2007.

Muji develops products in two distinct ways: from scratch or with the intent to improve on an existing one. That latter approach shows up in Muji's "undesign" redesign of chairs and tables by the German brand Thonet. An "anonymous" brand is particularly challenged in health and beauty, a category with products that people generally like to have fun with and buy to pamper themselves, says category manager Madoka Nagamoto.

A Muji-created product often starts with dialogue among merchandisers, outside designers (about 10 in Tokyo and six overseas) and the design team. The team, which meets weekly, has to negotiate the demands from various departments. For example, when the team designs housewares, the size and scale of the furniture might be taken into consideration. The team regularly gets feedback on how well it's doing: Muji holds company-wide exhibits, from which about 80% of new items are chosen. A five-member advisory board--which fine-tunes and vets Muji products from start to finish--has the final say.