one for all, all for all
Even before the company went bankrupt, Mr. Sugano had always made things for himself with his free time out of leftover materials. He was satisfied with his workmanship, and satisfied with the finished product. At any rate, he was the only end-user, so it wasn’t hard to make something that only existed to please himself. What for him was a playful pastime was the art of taking the image he had in his head and using his hands to use the materials and tools at hand to create a real object.
In all the little workshops in the world, there must be lots of old guys out there doing the same thing. Making useful things in spare moments. But the special thing about our Sugano is that the quality of his work is far from usual. This writer has seen the first document cases and briefcases that he made, and their beauty is difficult to put into words. When he says, “I just made something I wanted for myself.” He’s not just saying, “Look, I tried making this!” This is the work of a man who is so thoroughly devoted to detail, he creates with an enthusiasm that says, “I’m going to make this!”
Sugano: “We’ve always looking at the internal airplane parts and shinkansen parts, and feeling a beauty from them. They really are beautiful to us. And I thought, if I could make something from those precision-crafted sheet metal parts that I could carry around with me, I’d really like that.”
Inside Mr. Sugano’s head, a three-dimensional image of Aero Concept was there from the beginning. This could be close to what people like Ken Domon, Yonosuke Natori, and Ihei Kimura called “shutter izen.” This term is used commonly among photographers, and it refers to a style of photography where, instead of taking hundreds of shots and chosing the best one, the photographer already has an image in his own mind and all that is left is to go out and find the subject, adjust the exposure and shutter speed, and take the picture. Before the message is transformed from matter into image in the outside world, it has to be drawn clearly on the inside, in the mind of the photographer. Mr. Sugano, a lover of photography himself, has referred to shutter izen before. So surely he has, either consciously or subconsciously, used this method in his work making Aero Concept.
The one thing that stands out most from talking with Mr. Sugano, is how he never wavers from that initial image. Keiichi Sugano’s ideas and Keiichi Sugano the maker are totally connected, and this is what makes his work complete. Work that is completely unwavering. It’s not a simple thing for makers in any industry to do this. They have salesmen, marketing people, planning divisions, designers, promotion staff, PR people, a company CEO, and stockholders. That initial vision, that first image gets changed along the way due to the plans of the company. And then the production design, marketing research, and manufacturing is all altered and shared by the entire team. Amidst all that, it’s certainly not a simple task to create something with a clear vision.
“If everyone says what they want, you wind up with chinese stir-fry curry tomato sauce steak fried rice. The thing that everyone wants to eat is actually something that no one wants. That’s why at Keiswi, I’ve always thought about what I want, and worked at making that.”
Designers, marketers, and producers are all indispensible to carrying out a large project. Of course, their ability to communicate, express thoughts, and analyze mustn’t be underrated. It’s thanks to these people that the people in each role can work in an efficient way. And it is thanks to these people that creation and creative things make it onto the market in a way that makes money, and a lot of people’s livelihoods depend on this.
