Design for commodity

Reading an article about soy-sauce dispenser some months ago, I was so shocked, because such commodities should be same, I assumed. Of course it comes from my unfamiliarity with general design context, but I didn't know the world of industrial design very much. Here's  a quotation from the site of NYTimes:

“Faced with that nothingness, I felt a great nostalgia for human culture,” he recalled from the offices of G. K. Design, the firm he co-founded in Tokyo in 1952. “I needed something to touch, to look at,” he added. “Right then I decided to be a maker of things.”

When I introduced this article to my friends in Facebook page, some of them advised me that it is very famous people in industrial design, and also they said he was so famous there. According to the G.K. Design web-page, there is an office in Mejiro, which is near my university. (Unfortunately, I've never been there...)

Also, the designer answered to the interviewer like...

Why soy sauce? I was studying oil painting, but my interests changed. Because oil paintings European in origin, and sumi painting is from China. Then I went to Paris for a month, and I was very sick, but when I ate soy sauce, my condition improved.

As my major was mathematics in college/graduate school, I knew some people who were interested in both pure mathematics and applied. But, I'm too unfamiliar in design/art context to imagine how such people are interested in. At least, almost painters seemed to me that they were not concerned about actual industry... As we can see the web-site of G.K. Design as above, I'd like to go there if possible.

How Starbucks Saved My Life

The other day, I've already read this book, whose title is "How Starbucks Saved My Life." The author dismissed his jobs after 60 years old, and he began to work at Starbucks coffee shop.


The reason to choose this book is mainly for my study in English. This book doesn't need so many vocabulary, and I'd like to recommend it for people who would like to improve their English reading skill.

In the middle, the author communicates his daughter about his job, and he was shocked at her criticism.. It seemed to me that it is much typical family father... If it is written in Japanese-mother language-, I won't purchase it because it's easily imaginable. I might give a book once-over...