Naoki Sakai (industrial designer)

Naoki Sakai (坂井 直樹, Sakai Naoki, born 1947 in Kyoto) is a Japanese industrial designer who known as the designer of Nissan's pike car series with its retro-future design.[1][2] Currently, he is a professor of Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC), a guest design director for au, and the manager of his own company, waterdesign. He has collaborated with companies such as Nissan, Suzuki, Toyota (WiLL), Olympus, KDDI, and Cassina.[3]

The S Cargo was not designed by Sakai. Sakai led the Pike designs and created a proposal for the Nissan Figaro, but the design selected for final production (first shown at the 1989 Tokyo Motor Show) was designed by Nissan's in-house design team, led by Jim Shimizu (Shimizu Jun).[4][5]

Major works

Nissan Pao
Olympus O-Product
    • o-product (1988)
    • Ecru (1991)
  • au design project
    • HEXAGON (2005)
    • MACHINA (2005)
    • DRAPE (2006)
  • Toray
    • torayvino aqua meister (2007)

References

  1. ^ McAleer, Brendan (2021-03-08). "How Nissan's Bizarre Pike Factory Built Retro Masterpieces". Road & Track. Retrieved 2022-11-13.
  2. ^ Patton, Phil (2011-03-18). "Nissan's Cartoon Cars, Once So Hip". The New York Times. Retrieved 2022-11-13.
  3. ^ Kawaguchi, Judit (2007-05-08). "Naoki Sakai". The Japan Times. Archived from the original on 2014-12-27.
  4. ^ "Naoki Sakai – Nissan Figaro Designer". Figaro Owners Club. Retrieved 2022-11-13.
  5. ^ Pearlman, Chee (May–June 1990). "Cult of Cute". I.D. p. 51 – via Figaro Owners Club.