A while ago, one of my coworkers posted a video on our work chat group about Muji from The Science of Products on YouTube as the brand that designed “nothing”. I already had thoughts before watching the video, and seeing it only reinforced them.
The video tells the story of how Muji became a household brand through circumstance. What I want to talk about, though, is the soul of Muji and the intentionality behind it, or at least how I understand it.
The brand name Muji is a contraction of Mujirushi: mu (無, without) and shirushi (印, mark or seal). It’s a name that rejects excess by design. Other brands have employed a similarly no-BS visual identity, Ikea, The Ordinary, and Uniqlo, which is also Japanese. The aesthetic is often described as Japandi (Japanese-Scandinavian): restrained, functional, and deeply rooted in Japanese heritage.
Muji’s long-time communications and design director, Kenya Hara, grounds his design principles in Shinto philosophy. Muji products are functional, simple, and quietly beautiful. This simplicity reflects the backbone of Hara’s thinking: “emptiness.” Not emptiness as absence, but emptiness as openness, the capacity to receive anything and everything.
In Shintoism, kami, gods or spirits, reside in nature: in plants, soil, wind. They are everywhere, and their presence is never permanent. To invite them, a sacred structure called a himorogi is built: four wooden pillars tied with rope at the top, with nothing inside. The space is intentionally empty. It exists to receive the kami. These structures are still used today, often at construction sites, to bless the land. Hara has cited this concept as the philosophical foundation of “emptiness” in his design work.
This idea reminded me of a book I read called The Beauty of Everyday Things by also Japanese author, Soetsu Yanagi. The book argues that the more an object is used, the more its beauty reveals itself. I see this clearly in Muji’s products. Their functionality, the way they are used and customized, reflects this belief. The “emptiness” of Muji objects is filled by the personalities, routines, and lives of the people who use them. With use, they gain character. With time, their beauty becomes more perceptible.
Context matters, too. The economic decline in Asia mentioned in the video pushed consumers toward necessity over branding. Muji’s low-cost, no-frills approach placed it at the forefront. Later, in the 2010s, minimalism surged: millennial gray, flat design, and the era of “blanding,” where logos were stripped down to their simplest forms. What Muji had always been simply became culturally desirable.
Many successful Japanese brands root their identities deeply in culture: Muji in emptiness and utility; Mitsubishi in the samurai ethos; Shiseido in the Eastern philosophies of the Book of Changes. These brands remain instantly recognizable because they stay true to their core. Designing a brand is already difficult. Keeping its essence intact across decades is an entirely different discipline.
