Muji

Found an interesting magazine at the Chengdu Muji store with each issue featuring a different brand. The one I picked up is obviously about Muji :p

Some interesting quotations:

Muji for me is like white rice. By itself, white rice doesn't look like anything special - but it tastes delicious when you combine it with different side dishes. I can eat it everyday and never get sick of it. Luxury brands, in contrast, are like steak. Steak is a food hat possess flavour and of itself. It's delicious. But it doesn't go with everything. You can't eat it every day.

"Opinion: Professor Ken Kusunoki"

the idea of having 'enough' entails not only consuming and owning less but being enough at ease to give myself free space and free time, and being aware of what I really need

"Muji style: Paris / Maud Lepetit"

It's about taking care to choose something good for you, then treasuring and loving it and keeping it by your side for a long time.

"Muji style: Seoul / Jung Eun Yang"

I've started to orient my days around my role as father of a 4-year-old daughter and a 10-month-old son, and as husband to my wife. When I'm spending time at home with my family, eating with them, or out walking with them, or playing in the park, I'll sometimes get ideas or inspiration for a project. That's when my day as a designer begins. When I'm working on something and know there's not going to be more progress or the rest of the day, or I suddenly miss my kids - that's when I get the sense of "enough". Repeating this kind of daily routine as a designer, I've learned moderation, and through this moderation my life has taken its current shape.

"Muji style: Berlin / Uli Budde" - work-life balance goals?

Muji is a company that satisfies one of humanity's two conflicting desires. People are always whirled around by various urges. There's an urge to move towards more excitement and violence, and there's an urge to return to more decency and to the basics, to a quieter place.

"Advisory Board: Naoto Fukasawa"

We often talk about our "huge strategy," which, for our company, is "to serve a purpose."
...
Around the time Muji was launched, Seiji Tsutsumi had the thought, "Do all (women) wear makeup because they want to?" After all, there are probably people who don't want to wear makeup. Every day on TV, we're being shown celebrities who've had their makeup done and been made to wear dresses and hold designer bags. Humans, being by nature greedy animals, see this and want to compare ourselves to others. The consumer society exploits this mentality in extremely commercial ways. Even people who want to live true to themselves and their own aesthetic will find it easy to get swept up in the currents of society. Muji was created to protect t the freedom of such people.
...
The people who started Muji didn't have commercial outcomes in mind. Muji was started with pure - even naive - intentions.

"Masaaki Kanai"