The designers Jasper Morrison and Naoto Fukasawa have compiled 204 everyday objects in search of "super normal design": alongside examples of anonymous design like the Swiss Rex vegetable peeler or a simple plastic bag, there are design classics like Marcel Breuer’s tubular steel side table, Dieter Ram’s 606 shelving system, or Joe Colombo’s Optic alarm clock of 1970. With products by Newson, Grcic, the Azumis, and the Bouroullec brothers, it also represents the generation to which Morrison and Fukasawa belong. The phenomenon of the super normal is located, as it were, beyond space and time; the past and present of product design both point to a future that has long since begun. The super normal is already lying exposed before us; it exists in the here and now; it is real and available: we need only open our eyes; Fukasawa and Morrison make it visible for us.

Naoto Fukasawa (b.1956) is one of the best-known Japanese product designers working today. After graduating from Tama Art University in 1980, he moved to the United States and worked at IDEO, one of the world's most innovative design companies. In 1997, Fukasawa moved back to Japan to set up the IDEO Tokyo office. During his time at IDEO, he developed his sense for how people perceive and use objects. In 2003, Fukasawa left IDEO to form his own design company Naoto Fukasawa Design. Besides being a consultant for major companies, especially MUJI, he has also set up a new product brand called PLUS MINUS ZERO, a collection of minimal home appliances and products that has achieved worldwide acknowledgement for its user-friendly aesthetics. Moreover, Fukasawa's designs for companies such as Driade and B&B Italia attracted attention in Europe at the 2005 Milan Furniture Fair, and have continued to do so since. Fukasawa's design philosophy relies on carefully observing what people do and feel in their everyday lives in order to find simple solutions that touch the senses and link to shared memories. By working with the 'iconic' value of a product, be it a watch or a sofa, Fukasawa is able to come up with designs that address the common knowledge about things that people have. His groundbreaking wall-mounted CD player for MUJI in 1999 was based on the image of a kitchen fan and moved away from all the conventions of hi-fi equipment manufacture. It was a simple appliance, restrained in appearance and function, and very different from the numerous black boxes that had become the standard in the market. Interestingly, as Fukasawa's products are based on people's common and not always conscious view of things, his design solutions sometimes swim against the current of received opinions to achieve popularity and success. The LCD TV monitor he designed for PLUS MINUS ZERO reinstates the shape of the cathodic-tube TV set instead of becoming even thinner; his mobile telephone Infobar for KDDI/au has large keypads, referring back to the first models of the 1980s. The book is the first monograph published in English of the work of this innovative designer. Edited by Fukasawa himself and with contributions by writers from East and West, it includes a selection of his products to date, ranging from umbrellas and vases to sofas and telephones. Illustrated with never-before-seen photographs and drawings, Fukasawa's text elucidates the ideas behind each of his projects. Essays by artists, designers, and lecturers, notably Antony Gormley, Jasper Morrison and Bill Moggridge from IDEO, complete the book by giving an account of Fukasawa's design philosophy and of the significance of his work for the contemporary design world.

提倡简约设计的日本品牌MUJI于近日发布宣传品牌理念的MUJI Book。 致力于提倡简约、自然、富质感的MUJI式现代生活哲学一直受到吸引众多人的关注，其贯彻对材质、流程检视、简单化包装的坚持也是诚意十足。一直以来，MUJI的基本原则就是可持续地使用材料，同时尽量减少其对环境的影响，并以合理的价格发售。本次推出的MUJI Book无疑可以让你对该品牌有更深入的了解，该书将于2010年10月26日全球发行。 This fascinating monograph provides an unprecedented view into the inner workings of Muji, one of the most influential brands leading sustainable design. A prescient advocate of sustainable consumption and the matchless utility of good design, Muji’s founding principle was to develop new and simple products at reasonable prices by making the best use of materials while minimizing their impact on the environment. From a humble inaugural line of eight products nearly three decades ago, the brand now sells nearly five thousand different products in hundreds of its own stores in Asia, Europe, and North America.