Creative Review has a lengthy look at the story behind the rebirth of Uniqlo, focusing on Kashiwa Sato was brought in as creative director and Yugo Nakamura brought in to direct their online vision. Insightful reading:
There are minimalist hints at the spareness of traditional Japanese design, with nods towards Manga, hi-tech and industrial chic but with some softer Japanese trad elements such as tatami. Directed by Sato, the look he wanted for the store and the Uniqlo brand overall was “the ultra-contemporary cool aspect of Japan, its pop culture rather than something traditional and Japanesey,” he says.
Katayama calls it: “beauty conscious, ultra rational style”. Each element, from advertising to the new logo, to the shop floor is designed to reflect this fusion and the clothes themselves. “I considered how this concept and the brand identity of Uniqlo could be expressed as a space. Since the store has an abundance of variety of merchandise, I resorted to creating an environment with their products with very little ‘designing’ of the actual space. The interior design was based on how to enhance the merchandising,” says Katayama.
Uniqlo’s American invasion is a successful blend of Japonism with creative marketing techniques says Williamson. “Just a decade ago, because of trade friction, Japan was happier to disguise its Japanese-ness, now companies like Uniqlo can trade on a new taste for Japanese pop culture.” The brand’s new global logo, for instance, spells out Uniqlo in Japanese ‘katakana’ script. The Japanese logo, in Roman letters only, doesn’t have that.
Sato says that transferring this look from Japan was an important part of raising the brand abroad and a matter of exploiting those design elements he sees as Japanese: “They are logical, clean, high-quality, speed, flat, graphical,” he says.
