RANA UNITED / MITSUI DESIGNTEC — Co-creation, challenge, honesty and agility.

RANA UNITED is a comprehensive design firm consisting of three subdivisions: Ideation, Graphics and Technology. Specialists in each of these disciplines work together to provide cutting-edge solutions in diverse and complex fields. MITSUI DESIGNTEC Co., Ltd. provides construction services for commercial space, offering planning, design, construction, renewal and interior design services for offices, shops, showrooms, hotels, healthcare facilities and other. The company also sells interior design products. The MITSUI DESIGNTEC team has the strong conviction that it designs space – and society. Because the team members believe that space design is about designing a better society, i.e., a better working and living environment. Their strengths embrace crossover design, creating spaces beyond the imagination, one-stop full solutions for interior design and to deliver new life value to spaces.

Interview with RANA UNITED / MITSUI DESIGNTEC 

Red Dot: What does design mean to you?
RANA UNITED / MITSUI DESIGNTEC: Design is a resource to make every day just a little bit happier and nourish life or culture consequently.

To what extent do you think new technologies are changing design?
There are no changes fundamentally. However, we clearly have more choices and need more knowledge for them.

How would you define good communication design?
Connecting relative or different things, which then causes new inspiration or emergence. Or the strategy for that.

What makes your work unique?
Our development of a technique for finishing a picture using old and new arts. The arts in this case are a traditional Japanese plasterer technique known as “Sakan” and projection mapping and fluid simulation through the use of computer graphics. The flow speed and direction of the seasonal pictures generated are depending on the day, and their colour or flow rate is based on the people present at the time.

Was your award-winning work inspired by current social issues?
The turbulent world. Tradition and innovation, different disciplines and design languages. There is a need to transcend these to grasp things from multiple perspectives and to be able express them as a message.