When I see a bolt fixed on a product, I always feel a human touch applied to it when it was tightened to finish off the assembling process. I believe bolts and screws serve as a minimum unit of a product that can create excitement for those who use it.

One day, when I was a first grader, I found myself attracted by screws attached to the chassis of a radio-controlled toy car. I couldn’t resist the urge to break it down to the component parts, assuming that something glittering might be stored inside. As I was confident that I would be able to dissemble it and put it back together as did a person who originally assembled it, I sneaked tools out of my father’s toolbox and devoted myself to the work I had never experienced. As it turned out, I failed to restore it to the former state and ended up making a broken toy car out of a brand new one I bought a month earlier. Even as a grown-up, when I watch closely bolts applied to a product, I sometimes feel the urge to take it apart to see how it looks inside. Perhaps every one of you feels the same kind of desire.

When making industrial designs, designers mostly employ ready-made bolts and nuts that comply with safety standards. However, I am occasionally given a chance to design bolts and nuts specially used for a product of my own designing. On such occasions, I feel pleased and honored, thinking that I am given a role to instill affection and excitement into the product.

Even when designing parts of a product, designers are required to create designs that can satisfy the strict requirements for manufacturing while taking into consideration the users’ aspirations and stories associated with the product. Every bit of theses design elements aggregates to form a whole design.

The thought of every single bolt being filled with various aspirations of its designers and manufacturers brings us joy when we use the product.

Tadashi Inose

Product Design Dept.

Unit Leader