BUSINESS ARCHITECTS

PEOPLEText: Taketo Oguchi

This month’s cover design was produced by Yugo Nakamura who belongs to ‘bA (Business Architects)‘ that has quickly grown into a leading web development agency in Japan since its establishment. You may already know his experimental and beautiful interactive artworks on his personal web site ‘Yugop.com’. What are they currently doing? What is the company ‘bA’ where he belongs to? And where are they heading for? We interviewed Yugo and also Shinzo, the representative of bA.

Please introduce yourselves.

Yugo: I’m Yugo Nakamura, a designer at Business Architects. And during my personal time I’m involved with “MONO*crafts“.

Shinzo: I’m Shinzo Fukui, co-founder and CCO of Business Architects. You can also find my works at Viewon. The other one, Shinzo.com – which won Gold Prize at the Web Design Award in 1999 – is currently closed, but I plan to re-open it someday as a relic of the web design of the 90’s.

What triggered your interest in design?

Yugo: I first stumbled onto architecture during high school, and it was from there that my interest in the world of landscape and architecture took off. Naturally, I was attracted to other fields of design. And after having traveled down many winding roads (^o^), I’m now designing for the web.

Tell us about your work at “yugop.com”.

Yugo: “yugop.com” is my personal net-based laboratory. I usually work on it in between work. The theme of the space is to play with and explore every possible form of visual and interactive expression currently available on the Web. I’ve also been active with larger projects.

Tell us about your work at Business Architects Inc. (bA). What is your role there?

Yugo: At bA, I’m mostly involved with the visual and interface design aspect of web projects. My role at work is quite interactive and versatile. From creating large web sites to the rolling credits of a movie, I guess you can say that I wear many hats.

Tell us more about Business Architects Inc. as a company.

Shinzo: I think I better step in on this one. The company serves up solutions and strategies that is necessary to build business – so the name is Business Architects. Our forte lies in developing businesses interested in using the latest technology. We’re often thought of as just a web development company, but our operation covers much diverse areas than that.

Our current staff numbers 70. Some have come from consulting firms, others from advertising agencies, the fashion industry, software makers, printing houses, system development companies – we even have a musician, stage art director, event promoter, illustrator, and writer. With so many talented members, it’s like running a circus with many wild animals!

So, as Yugo has just mentioned, we’ve planned and developed magazines, created advertisements for fashion brands, directed promotional videos…we’ve had our hands full with not only web projects but with diverse forms of media. This is all possible because of the plethora of talent that exists at bA.

It seems that employees at bA all have their own particular style and abilities, but how does that influence the work process of bA as a web development company?

Yugo: When working alone, or in a small design studio, it can become difficult to break free from your own world – sometimes even shutting out possibilities. I find that spending time with people who think on completely different wavelengths – those with foreign skills and backgrounds – frees the mind. I’ve experienced this at bA.

Read more ...

[Help wanted] Inviting volunteer staff / pro bono for contribution and translation. Please e-mail to us.
MoMA STORE