Yuta Takahashi – “colour is a manifestation of emotion”

We talk to Yuta Takahashi about colour and minimalism.

This week Creative Chair is in Nakamura, Japan where we’re talking to Yuta Takahashi about his impressive graphic design work and the ethos behind it.

You can see a lot more projects from Yuta Takahashi on his Behance page and website.

Could you tell us a little more about yourself and what you do?

I am an art director and designer working in Japan. We do a wide range of designs including branding, graphic design, package design, editorial design and web design.

What draws you to the minimalist style of design?

In the present age, things are overflowing, so I think people are becoming insensible in various ways. By applying a design that gives “space” to the space filled with things, we want to create the moment people will suddenly return to me.

A lot of your work is monochrome. Is this choice of colours a further expression of minimalism or a matter of personal preference?

Colour is a manifestation of emotion. If we have to express certain emotions by design, we use colour. For example, Tsunami App, etc was designed to the use three colours of purple, red, yellow all over to inform the degree of risk of the tsunami.

Which of your projects are you most proud of (and why)?

Rather than an individual project, how did I get to the essence of the design? I emphasise that. I thought that the design would split into four hierarchies:

1) Personal area
2) Surrounding area (limited)
3) Spatial domain (global)
4) Time domain (historical)

The design becomes more difficult as it reaches 1 to 4 hierarchies, respectively. However, the more I work in a deep hierarchy, the more I think that the importance and social value of the work will increase.

And finally, if you died and got reincarnated as a song, what would that song be?

It is “wind”. The sound of the wind can also be music depending on the heart of the listener. And it is sometimes caught as just wind. But once you catch the wind as music, people can listen freely.

I think that I want to design such that the listener can create music by myself (Clogging place, for me design is a challenge about the liberation of people’s creativity …), that is, as a song. If I am born again, I would like to be such an existence.