Designer profile

canaria — Enjoy now and all your life.

Yuji Tokuda is an experienced, award-winning creative director, art director and artist from Japan. After graduating from Musashino Art University, he started his career at the Japanese advertising agency Dentsu and then the Dutch creative agency KesselsKramer, before establishing his own design agency canaria inc. in 2007. He is renowned for the consistent concept-making through brand, product, project development to communication as well as his creative direction and design in the total design. His clients/projects include I LOHAS, FLOWFUSHI, finetoday, SPACEPORT CITY, AVATAR-IN from All Nippon Airways, the EN facial salon from Paris, Yoshinogawa, Toyooka Theater Festival, DUO, Mori Art Museum, UNIQLO global campaign and Tokyo Motor Show. He has won numerous design awards worldwide: at the Red Dot Award: Brands & Communication Design (Red Dot: Best of the Best), iF Design Award (Gold Award), Cannes Lions (Gold Lion), ADC NY (Gold and Silver Awards) and Japan Package Design Awards (Gold, Silver and Bronze).

Interview with canaria

Red Dot: Why did you become a designer?
canaria: I assume the beauty of the design can move the minds of people.

What does design mean to you?
An action and an outcome show at a certain moment what attractiveness they have for people.

To what extent do you think new technologies are changing design?
All manner of options, both for clients and designers, are increasing dramatically

How would you define good communication design?
It creates a circulation of happiness due to the connection between the user’s joy and the designer’s pride.

What intention do you pursue with your award-winning works?
For finetoday: We set this main topic to change the concerns into expectations for the debut of the long-established firm of Shiseido as a new company and to show what it wants to represent. We also tried to express valuable content with Shiseido’s brand characteristics to everyone worldwide. For Penon: Environmentally friendly products matter now more than ever due to the world situation. PENON Inc. aims to produce fashionable and ethical stationery; and has developed a concept: the more you use, the more forests grow.

“Enjoy now and all your life.”

All awarded projects

The success of canaria is also reflected in the distinctions in the Red Dot Award: Brands & Communication Design: