Kamimura & Co. is a design studio founded by a designer Makoto Kamimura and a director Sachi Kamimura. The studio mainly designs visual identities of brands and companies, as well as other areas, by taking a holistic approach. Last year, we also started Detail Type Foundry, the project of making and selling our typefaces.
With any project, we emphasize a focus on research and discussion. We love to know new things and to discuss various topics. In the fields of arts or marketing, it’s important to read history and think about nature. In most cases, we research to have new perspectives. Sometimes researches for book design let us to burial ritual, sometimes those of making typeface leads us to get quantum mechanics. Based on the materials we have found from the research, we discuss to find ways for the project. Regardless of our job titles, we work together on research and discussion. Of course, we have a lot of discussion with our clients. We share our plans and opinions to our clients as they expect us to give them ideas. It is necessary to have open and honest dialogues so that we can have a success on our projects.
What people see as visual products is just the tip of an iceberg, as there are much more processes behind one visual material. Visual communication has big power, so we always consider carefully how we manage it on each project. Visual materials interact with surrounding environments just as people do in everyday life. We have responsibilities for the way how they work in various scenes. To make a big impact from small things under these restrictions, it's usually important to design each element in detail (i.e. typeface).
We had been creating typefaces as a part of visual identity projects for several companies before we launched Detail Type Foundry (Detail) in Nov. 2018 in order to sell our original typefaces to general customers on our platform. Based on our experience and knowledge as a design studio, we Detail would like to provide our customers with new typefaces by rethinking established ideas for cultural diversity in our time.
Detail's first typeface Astro is a response to today's technology and science. The new form or appearance shaped by new technology necessarily brings a new form of beauty, as a sculptor Brâncuși found in the airplane propeller. But, depending on who sees it, the forms can be good or not. We prefer things questioning about aesthetics.
We realized that typeface design affects widespread domains, crossing borders and boundaries in media than we had expected before starting Detail. Of course, there are more restrictions and responsibilities when working on high-impact projects, but we are happy to challenge significant projects. Also, after our launch, we have started to meet more foreign designers than ever.
These interactions help us find new challenges. Different cultures from different languages, different designs from different cultures... it's lifelong interest!
