TAKUHIRO SHINOMOTO | Based in Los Angeles. Founded Tortoise General Store in 2003 and began presenting Japanese products to an international audience. Visiting workshops and factories throughout Japan, he has built relationships with numerous craftspeople and currently undertakes brand direction and production in fields ranging from tableware to furniture and home fragrance. I believe you won’t find a line of tableware with as many sizes and dimensions as HASAMI PORCELAIN. When I set out to design HASAMI PORCELAIN, I wanted its modular, multi-functional character to be a central tenant, so people would be encouraged to build a personalized collection of tableware that worked for their specific needs. Even when making furniture, I am drawn to modular, multi-functional design for this reason. For form, I’m attracted to simple and minimal shapes–even though simple design is oftentimes the hardest to achieve. In Japanese, we say ‘nigabashoganai’, as in there’s no place to hide from our mistakes when a design is reduced to its simplest form.