Kenji Ekuan


Kenji Ekuan was a Japanese industrial designer, best known for creating the design of the Kikkoman soy sauce bottle.

Biography

Born in Tokyo on September 11, 1929, Ekuan spent his youth in Hawaii. At the end of World War II, he moved to Hiroshima, where he witnessed the atomic bombing of the city, in which he lost his sister and his father, a Buddhist priest. He said the devastation motivated him to become a "creator of things". Later he attended Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. In 1957, he founded GK Industrial Design Laboratory . "GK" stood for "Group of Koike", as Koike was the name of an associate professor at the university.
In 1970, he became president of the Japan Industrial Designers' Association and five years later he was elected as president of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design.
During his lifetime he served as chair of the Japan Institute of Design, dean of Shizuoka University of Art and Culture was and a trustee of the Art Center College of Design.
Ekuan died in the hospital in Tokyo on February 8, 2015, at the age of 85.

Selected works

Products that Ekuan oversaw the design of included the following.

Railway vehicles

Logos

He also served as co-general producer for the World Design Exposition 1989 held in Nagoya.

Honors and awards

Published books

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