Wabi Sabi

An ambitious early project, and my introduction to 3D modelling. The brief was to design something MUJI could sell - the Japanese brand built on restraint, on the unbranded and the essential, on a quietly confident "this will do."

We named the project Wabi Sabi, after the Japanese principle of finding beauty in serenity, simplicity and imperfection - a fitting frame for MUJI, and a discipline to design against. The aim was an object honest in form and useful in function, and nothing more: a single phone case, universal, that earned every feature it had.

The central idea was universality through flexibility. Using a flexible 3D-printing filament, we developed a case that could expand and contract to fit every iPhone from the SE to the 14 - the most recent model at the time - so one object replaced a whole range of single-fit cases. The flexible material did a second job as protection, and that became the only feature we let ourselves add: padded corners, on top of the bare case form. Everything else, in the spirit of the brief, we left out.

Many iterations later we had a functional prototype that fit the entire range - deliberately minimal, one material, one functional addition. The restraint was the design: in a category that adds pattern, bulk and branding, Wabi Sabi tried to earn its place by subtracting.