Naoto Fukasawa was born in 1956 in Yamanashi, Japan. He graduated from the Department of Product Design at Tama Art University in Tokyo (where he is currently visiting professor) in 1980. That same year, he became head of development at Seiko Epson. In 1989, he moved to Silicon Valley, where he joined ID Two (now IDEO San Francisco), before returning to Tokyo in 1996, when he founded and directed IDEO. In 2003, he established NAOTO FUKASAWA DESIGN, engaging in numerous collaborations with leading companies and international brands on projects ranging from precision electronic equipment to furniture, interiors and architecture.
In the design sector, he has collaborated with the world's most prestigious names. He designed the Demetra family of adjustable table, floor, and wall lamps for Artemide and created numerous objects for Alessi, including the Itsumo cutlery line and the Nomu and Cha series of thermos flasks, kettles and teapots. For B&B Italia, he produced the Papilio, Bull and Harbor furniture lines consisting of beds, tables and armchairs. His work with Boffi resulted in the Sabbia and Lotus family of washbasins and monobloc bathtubs. His fruitful collaboration with Danese Milano gave light to Itka lamps in etched opaline glass and the Bincan collection of furnishing accessories. He designed the Substance chair collection for Magis, and the So armchair and the Tsuki lamp for De Padova. He created the Thonet 130 collection of chairs, a classic design inspired by the legendary Thonet chair. Fukasawa is on the Muji design advisory board; he designed the award-winning wall-mounted CD player for the brand.
Fukasawa has received numerous awards during his career. Many of his works are now in such museums as MoMa in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Designmuseum Danmark. In 2007, the UK Royal Society of Arts awarded him the title of Honorable Royal Designer for Industry. That same year, he won the EDIDAs and was named Designer of Year. In 2017, he became a jury member of the Loewe Craft Award. With Jasper Morrison, he curated the exhibition Supernormal. Sensations of the Ordinary, first shown in Tokyo and London in 2006 and Milan in 2007. He was chairman of the Good Design Award from 2010 to 2014. In 2012, he was a member of the jury for the Braun Prize; that same year, he became curator of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Tokyo. He was awarded the Isamu Noguchi Prize in 2018. With photographer Tamotsu Fujii, Fukasawa published the volume The Outline – The Unseen Outline of Things. He also published two important monographs, Naoto Fukasawa (2007) and Naoto Fukasawa Embodiment (2018), with Phaidon Press.
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