Swedish Designers Leave Their Mark In Japanese Office Supplies

Kjell Fornander | 2010-02-08

Askul is one of Japan’s leading office supply companies—the name comes from asu kuru, or “it will arrive tomorrow.” The company’s massive office supply catalog is well known at all Japanese offices. What is less well known is that Askul has for several years been working closely with a number of Swedish designers. Three of them, Nina Jobs, Thomas Eriksson and Björn Kusoffsky, visited Tokyo in connection with Designtide Tokyo 2009.

 “Our first contact was through Ewa Kumlin, head of Svensk Form (the Swedish Society of Crafts and Design) around five years ago,” Nina Jobs says. “Askul was at the time looking for European designers for some of their products. First they worked with a number of designers from several countries, but today the number has shrunk, and we are all Swedish.”

Ms. Jobs says that working with Japanese clients is a bit different from the experience at home.  “You don’t get an assignments purely based on your portfolio,” she says. “First they have to get to know you and feel safe in the relationship. There can be many personal meetings before you get the first order. You have to invest a bit in the relationship.”

Clearly, in her case a mutual liking developed; as of today, Ms. Jobs has delivered ten collections to Askul.

“There are many similarities between Swedish and Japanese design, but also differences,” she says. “Never forget kawaii (“cute”) when you do work in Japan. You cannot afford to be too slick. There has to be an element of kawaii to the design. Of course, I do it in my own personal way, maybe not exactly what the Japanese mean by kawaii. But my true style is probably a bit cleaner.

“There are actually not many of us Swedish designers who have made it in Japan,” she adds. “Many are invited to have exhibitions here, but then there rarely is much more.

“Design today is a very competitive business,” Ms. Jobs says. “It’s not enough to work for Swedish companies; you have to find also other markets. Many Swedish designers have found markets in Europe and North America. I have coincidently come to be rather well established in Asia. Besides Japan, I also have regular clients in Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand. Interestingly, I didn’t get these contacts through my work in Europe. Instead, they saw my work in Japan. The rest of Asia is looking to Japan for design and lifestyle trends; Japan is clearly the gateway to the bigger Asian market. Design is really very new to Asia.”

Nina Jobs has a theory why Swedish designers seem to be doing especially well in Japan. “The Japanese are very quick to pick up trends,” she says. “Swedish designers are often trend-leading, and this fact has not been lost on the Japanese. Besides, the Swedish work ethic is not far from the Japanese: they have seen that we keep deadlines and deliver what we have promised. One difference is that the designer in Japan is not really part of the product development team. In Sweden it’s much more of teamwork. Here you are basically just one cog in the supply chain. But then, Swedish companies don’t have the hierarchies that the Japanese have.”

Also heavily involved with Askul is Stockholm Design Lab, with well-known designers Björn Kusoffsky and Thomas Eriksson. Their work is a bit different from that of Nina Jobs.

“Our first job was to redesign a battery,” Mr. Eriksson explains. “We helped them to find a design line. We have moved on from batteries to notebooks, glue sticks, packages of wet tissues and many other basic office supplies. There is still a way to go. Askul has 30,000 products in their catalog, and we have been involved in only a handful of them.

“We try to give everyday products a bit more soul; simple, without being boring design,” he continues. “We try to use simple symbols that explain what the product is all about: understated design, everything in its proper place. There is too much information in today’s world. We try to remove some of the clutter—adding through reducing. Visual taciturnity, if you wish.”

Björn Kusoffsky believes that their Askul products would work very well in Sweden, too. But then adds a slightly surprising note. “Basically, I think that the Swedish actually find it difficult to accept extreme simplicity,” he says. “I think the Japanese are a bit braver."

(This article is drawn from an article appearing in Opportunity Sweden: http://www.isatokyo.org/opportunity_sweden/industry/)