Stopping an Architect’s Eye
The product line that this man produced, Aero Concept, is something that became known through a funny process of strictly word of mouth. In the beginning, he only made this product for himself, after all. The first person who gave him an order was an architect. One day, Mr. Sugano was carrying a case he’d made himself. He had built it as something to hold his blueprints, and it was something he’d simply done to please himself. He used all the skills he’d refined in his day-to-day work to make this specialized “blueprint holding case” – it was the very antithesis of a multipurpose bag. However, it had a very strong presence. The first person to notice this case was an architect who had come for a meeting.
From Ear to Ear
“He asked me to make one for him too, so I did it. And then someone who saw his contacted me, and I made one for him as well. And then gradually more and more people started coming to me with the same request. Whenever I had some free time outside my regular job making prescision-crafted sheet metal, I’d be working on these projects a little bit at a time. And next, a guy like you, doing research for an article for a magazine or a newspaper, he came. And then after a little while, United Arrows and Beams. At that time I didn’t even know those shops existed. Mitsubishi, Fender, Toyota, Porsche, all kinds of people started coming to talk to me.”
Attention from Around the World
When he started to talk about that, he developed a happy, mischevious grin. Strictly put, it was simply a handicraft, no, an industrial handicraft. And it turned into something huge, with buzz building more buzz, and people connecting more people, coming together and creating the current situation. The current situation being that people all over the world are paying attention to this maker and his brand. He was chosen as one of Japanese Newsweek’s “100 Japanese Small and Medium-sized Companies that the World is Watching” in 2007. He’s been interviewed at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. He’s being courted by the Bentley’s, the famous London antique shop, who wants to make a contract with him as a vending agent. It’s impossible to list all the stories that express how world-wide, how global this man’s business has become. If I were to ask him how this little neighborhood workshop managed to get into such a position, surely his answer would be something like this:
“I really don’t know that myself.”
But looking at things from the side, it seems as though there are two causes. One, is the overwhelming skill that is put into making the products. That is expressed in the Aero Concept name, the high technical skill put into making airplane and shinkansen parts. And the second reason is the aesthetic aspect, the way his personal sense of style is expressed in his work. It’s a word he hates to use, but it’s the design that draws people in.
Design Not-Design
“We craftsmen, we’ve always been pushed around, doing contract work. But craftsmen love to do good work. Everyone works hard to make their skills shine. I’m talking about my workshop making prescision-crafted sheet metal. Most people don’t even know what that is, right? We make structural components for the seats in airplanes and shinkansen trains. We’re making something that regular people never even see. That’s why I can’t do any design. People often ask me, “Mr. Sugano, do you also work in design?” but I have no idea where they got that idea. “It’s not design. I can’t design.” I always have to explain that to them.”
Mr. Sugano insists “I can’t design,” but what is it like in his workshop? It really looks as though he is designing things. What exactly is this precision sheet metal processing that he has as his main business. This writer took a close look at the world of precision sheet metal processing to see if there isn’t even a little design incorporated into this work that is hidden from the public eye.
