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JUNE 2007
UNDESIGN
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THE 
UNDESIGNERS
By Tim McKeough
Jasper Morrison’s toaster for Rowenta
(2003) exemplifies his commitment to
functionality. Design, says Morrison, is a
process of “knocking off the rough edges.”
PHOTO BY COLIN FAULKNER; PRODUCT COURTESY ROWENTA USA62
JUNE 2007  AZURE
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Keep it simple, stupid. It’s an oft-repeated phrase, though challenging
advice to follow. This is particularly true in the design industry, where the
pressure to get noticed sometimes leads designers and manufacturers to
focus on visual pyrotechnics over long-term appeal. 
A handful of designers, however, are sticking to the old modernist prin-
ciple that form should truly follow function. Led by Jasper Morrison in
London and Paris, Naoto
Fukasawa in Tokyo, and
Konstantin Grcic in Munich,
these designers are turning out
products that will likely enjoy
some longevity. Each of them
aims to strip superfluous detailing
and style – to remove the design,
almost – and let process be their
guide. For this reason, we’re call-
ing them undesigners, even though
their commitment to functionality
makes them among the most rig-
orous designers practicing today.
You’ll still find them releasing
trade fair showstoppers every now
and again – but that, they argue,
happens by accident.
Celebrating “normal” design
has become something of a per-
sonal cause for Morrison and
Fukasawa, who collaborated on
JUNE 2007  AZURE 63
the exhibition Super Normal to
help explain where they’re com-
ing from. Featuring a collection
of objects that do what they’re
supposed to, but which other-
wise go unnoticed – from
Morrison’s Glo-Ball lamp and
Jean Nouvel’s Less table to a
glass milk bottle and a Bic
lighter – the exhibition of about
200 items was presented in
Tokyo and London last year
before turning up at the Milan
furniture fair this year. The
exhibition, says Morrison,
“stems from noticing that certain objects, most of them anonymously
designed, work better than others in the long term. That prompted me
to design more normal-looking things, like the cutlery I did for Alessi.
At the same time, I noticed some of Naoto Fukasawa’s designs, like the
Déjà-vu stools he did for Magis. He seemed to be trying to do the
same thing.”
Morrison elaborated on the idea in an essay he wrote to accompany
the exhibition: “Design, which is supposed to be responsible for the
man-made environment we all inhabit, seems to be polluting it
instead.” Further, he writes that the original goal of modern design –
to make life easier with products that can be manufactured efficiently –
has been sidetracked.
Describing his own method, Morrison says it’s a process of “knock-
ing off the rough edges” – and looking for furniture and products that
will behave as naturally as possible wherever they end up – rather than
an exercise primarily about form. As a result, his products range from
pieces that have simple shapes (such as his stackable Oak Tables for
Cappellini, which consist of flat tops on straight, round legs) to more
sculptural ones (such as the Lotus Lounge Chair’s thin, curving back-
rest, which cradles the user’s body). He employs whatever form he
Three top industrial
designers – Morrison,
Fukasawa and Grcic –
are leading the pursuit
of the simple life
UK designer JASPER 
MORRISON has been com-
mitted to designing
“normal-looking things”
since the ’80s.
NAOTO FUKASAWA of Japan
creates minimalist prod-
ucts that have a familiar
feel while looking like noth-
ing else on the market.
German designer
KONSTANTIN GRCIC’s prin-
cipal method is to let the
process drive the form.
PHOTOS: CENTRE RIGHT BY HIDETOYO SASAKI, COURTESY PLUS MINUS ZERO; BOTTOM LEFT COURTESY KONSTANTIN GCRIC INDUSTRIAL DESIGNA Light with a Dish, by Naoto
Fukasawa for Plus Minus Zero,
addresses the common behaviour
of putting down your keys and
turning on the light when you
arrive home.
Konstantin Grcic’s XP 5080 
espresso machine, made for Krups
(2005), is stripped to its most 
basic engineering elements.
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64
JUNE 2007  AZURE
PHOTOS: TOP BY STEFAN KIRCHNER/ALESSI;BOTTOM COURTESY KONSTANTIN GRCIC INDUSTRIAL DESIGNbelieves will function best while “throwing out any ideas that are too eye-
catching.”
Last year, Morrison released his simplest product yet, the Crate, a no-
nonsense wooden box for Established & Sons. In doing so, he proved that
even simple objects could generate passionate responses. “It caused a sur-
prising amount of trouble, with bloggers accusing me of being cynical and so
on,” says Morrison, adding that he got the idea for the product after using
an old wine crate as his bedside table for years. “What surprised me was that
no one was complaining about the chair that wears clothes.”
Fukasawa has similar objectives but a different mindset when he sets out
to design a product. “I tend to start with visualizing the core of normality
for the product category I’m working on, because that core represents the
most harmonious relationship between objects and people,” he says. “Once
I capture it, all I do is refine this essence to fit today’s lifestyle.”
Fukasawa is also intrigued by the idea of “affordance,” or the way in
which objects can be used for unintended purposes. For example, a wall is
built to provide structural support, but people also use it as a place to lean
(or someone might use a wine crate as a bedside table). It’s easy to see how
such thinking could influence Fukasawa’s Log collection for Swedese;
inspired by the shape of a fallen tree, it consists of a bench, stool and table
that appear to have come from a single trunk. 
By thinking about unexpected functions, Fukasawa says he picks up on
existing human behaviours and reflects them in his work. “I call it ‘design
with a subconscious mind,’ ” he says. This philosophy helps explain why he
has designed a humidifier
shaped like an oversized water
droplet for his studio, Plus
Minus Zero, and a wall-mount-
able CD player for the
brandless brand Muji, both of
which feel somehow familiar
while looking like nothing else
on the market. “Even though
people haven’t seen these prod-
ucts before, they subconsciously
recognize the essence of nor-
mality within them,” says
Fukasawa. 
Grcic, on the other hand, fol-
lows a method driven by
process. “I’m always looking for
a logic to why things are the
way they are,” he says. “It’s quite essential to have things in front of me as a
model, as something physical, as something I can mock up and walk
around.” Every one of his products can be understood as a series of decision
points, where each answer brings him closer to a final design. The Miura
bar stool is a good example. Asked to create a bar stool for Plank, Grcic and
his team started with a seat supported by a single column and a round base
plate. Surveying the market, they noticed that many stools have pneumatic
height adjusters. They decided to leave out that feature as a way of simplify-
ing the product. “It was a
decision that made us feel so
good,” says Grcic. “Without the
height adjustment, the next step
was to have four legs rather than
a central column. With four legs,
we immediately came to the con-
clusion that it had to be
stackable – and that was the
breakthrough moment.” In their
research, they had found no other
stackable stool on the market.
Chair_One for Magis (2004) may
be Grcic’s most designery looking
product, but its form is strictly
dictated by logic.
Morrison’s humble Op-La,
created for Alessi in 1998,
is a small table with a
removable serving tray.
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All that’s required to operate
Fukasawa’s wall-mounted Muji
CD player, from 1998, is to
place the CD on the spindle and
pull the cable.
JUNE 2007  AZURE 65
PHOTO BY COLIN FAULKNER; PRODUCT COURTESY THE DESIGN EXCHANGE,FROM THE EXHIBITION JAPANESE DESIGN TODAY 100•
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Grcic’s Mayday utility lamp, made
by Flos in 1998, is elegant and ver-
satile. It can be hung from a wall
hook, suspended from the ceiling
or left on the table.
PHOTO BY COLIN FAULKNER; PRODUCT COURTESY QUASI MODO MODERN FURNITURE66
JUNE 2007  AZURE
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JUNE 2007  AZURE 67
PHOTOS: TOP LEFT BY WALTER GUMIERO/CAPPELLINI, BOTTOM CENTRE BY HIDETOYO SASAKI, COURTESY PLUS MINUS ZEROseem like exceptions, in a sea of flamboyant objects that grab attention in
showrooms but that you might not want in your living room. Are the unde-
signers on the leading edge of a major shift in the industry? There are signs
something is afoot. “During the Milan fair, the town is full of designers din-
ing out in trattorias, looking for normal atmospheres they can relax in,” says
Morrison. “There’s something wrong in expecting others to live in our
designed world when we choose to escape it ourselves.”
It’s a similar story, but a differ-
ent starting point, for Chair_One.
Asked by Magis to develop a chair
in die-cast aluminum, Grcic’s stu-
dio discovered that the material is
best applied in small sections.
Working with wire and sheets of
aluminum, they pieced together “a
kind of line drawing of a three-
dimensional shape” that fit the
material’s characteristics. “We
were led by the logic of following
a process, and that process
brought us step by step to certain
decisions,” he says.
Grcic is just as concerned as
Morrison and Fukasawa are about keeping superficial styling out of his
products, and the success of Chair_One has made him nervous he may get
pigeonholed because of the chair’s distinctive geometric aesthetic.
“Chair_One has a very strong image, and people see the image and they call
it a style,” he says. “For me, it’s disappointing, because it’s not a style at all.
It’s logic that made this chair what it is.” 
Grcic and Morrison’s shared interest in practical, sensible design is no
accident. In the mid ’80s, while Grcic was apprenticing as a cabinetmaker in
London, he was impressed by images he
had seen of Morrison’s early work. A few
years later, when Grcic enrolled at the
Royal College of Art, he rented an apart-
ment above Morrison’s studio. “This was
pure coincidence,” says Grcic. “I found a
flat to live in, and it happened to be in a
house where he had his studio. My landla-
dy also had some pieces from Jasper in the
room.” He was tutored by Morrison at
school, and later helped out in the studio.
Morrison, Fukasawa and Grcic all name
Achille Castiglioni, the Italian master of
common-sense design, as an influence. In
fact, Grcic became interested in the design
profession after his sister mailed him an
exhibition catalogue from a Castiglioni ret-
rospective in Vienna. “It opened my eyes
for design,” he says. He couldn’t have
known then that years later Castiglioni
would identify Grcic as his “spiritual heir.”
The idea of designing simple, well-rea-
soned products is certainly not new. But in
a world hungry for spectacle, such products
Morrison’s stackable Air chairs
are made from polypropylene
with a chromed steel frame.
Produced in 1999 by Magis.
For his studio Plus Minus Zero,
Fukasawa designed a humidifier
shaped like an oversized water
droplet.
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