Umbrella innovation that changes our daily lives (Part 1)

Marna’s design structure, making the most of ideas

– Marna has been a GOOD DESIGN AWARD winner for 19 years in a row. In this interview, I would love to hear the secret behind creating so many hit products. First, I’m curious about how the design team is organized. You are in overall charge of it, aren’t you?

Ryota Taniguchi (Design Group Manager, Marna Development Department) Yes. As the current manager of the Design Group, I supervise our product design department. There are about 10 designers, and they are not separated according to genres: our style is for the person who comes up with an idea to be responsible for taking the project forward.

We have as many as 100 or so projects underway at a time. All employees are required to be generalists, because we are characterized by an integrated approach to planning, design, prototyping, verification, and mass production. The person in charge looks after the project until the end, so there are a lot of hardships, but this is why we have a culture where you can take pride in something because it’s your own work.

– I think that’s one of the keys to your creation of unique products. Could you give a simple explanation of the normal development cycle?

Taniguchi When an idea for a new product appears, we decide who will take charge, and the plan is refined through repeated in-house prototyping. This is followed by production management, in which we coordinate between in-house engineers and our factory, and then mass production. Most projects come to market in a year or two, but the Shupatto Umbrella was a special case which took many years. It is an anomaly not only because it took so long, but also because there were so many mistakes and fixes along the way.

Inconvenience on rainy days was the starting point for the idea

– The Shupatto Umbrella is a full-length umbrella incorporating the innovative idea of a frame which rotates when the umbrella is closed, rolling up the fabric, so that it comes together even without a strap. This is a completely new invention. How did you get the idea?

Taniguchi The starting point was when our company’s current CEO, Go Nagoya, gave a detailed account of what he saw at a department store after coming back to the office. “People are lining up at the entrance to put their wet umbrellas into plastic bags. There are puddles on the floor, so it looks as though they might slip, and the attendants are scrambling to replenish the bags. Can’t we do something about this chaos?” he asked.

He said to us that he felt “solving this problem would be of great value.” This led to the question, “Is there a smarter way to handle an umbrella?” and the project was launched.

– When it comes to product development, I feel that it is very important to understand the minor inconveniences which are so common in everyday life as social issues. Hearing about this inconvenience on rainy days, could you already see a new technical solution for umbrellas?

Taniguchi At that time, an image of an umbrella that “comes together at the same time as closing” came into my head. My intuition told me, “If we could make the cloth come together all at once, we could solve this.” So I immediately tried out a mechanism in which I attached rubber to the joints of the spokes to gather in the cloth as soon as the umbrella was closed. I thought about how best to add a pulling motion.

But when I actually tried using this, it wasn’t nearly durable enough. Umbrellas are products that are opened and closed very often. After moving the mechanism 20 or 30 times, the rubber stretched and became useless. On the other hand, when I tried increasing the strength, the force was too strong and the cloth shot away and bounced back. In the end, I realized that this structure could not be mass-produced.

Taniguchi We worked on these prototypes for three years in order to think up the structure, and spent another two years to establish a mass production system. In total, it took us about five years to complete the project. I think there were probably more than 100 prototypes.

Five-year development which took on the challenge of making umbrella history

– It took you five years! The market is already flooded with umbrellas. Given this context, what was it that enabled you to see this project through to completion rather than giving up on it partway?

Taniguchi Japan has a lot of rain, and vinyl umbrellas are widespread: we are said to have the world’s highest annual consumption of umbrellas. So I felt like there was a huge audience that would be made happy by this solution. The history of umbrellas stretches back before the start of the Common Era, but their shape has hardly changed. Basically, there is a pole onto which fabric is fixed. What changed after this was the invention of the folding umbrella in Germany in the 1920s and its commercialization under the name of Knirps. This brand became synonymous with folding umbrellas.

When we came up with a prototype that was close to the current structure, I realized that it would have such a big impact that it would be the next umbrella innovation since Knirps. There were a lot of very difficult issues given the scale of this innovation, but we never lost our enthusiasm to continue until it was completed. I think Nagoya, who came up with the original suggestion, was also determined.

Breakthrough with dual runners

— How did you come up with the new structure?

Taniguchi The cylindrical part that you slide with your hand when you open and close the umbrella is called a “runner;” ordinary umbrellas have only one. However, as we made prototypes over and over, it occurred to us that if we gave the umbrella two of these, the cloth ought to come together nicely.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that all you need to do is use two. The umbrella has a spiral structure on its inner side, and we needed a very slight time lag between moving the first one and then, slightly afterwards, the second one. They are only a few milliseconds off, but this makes the fabric flow naturally, and the built-in locking function brings it together at the end.

Taniguchi Even once we understood the theory, making a structure that could be stably reproduced was a Herculean task, and we had to redo it many times. Another problem was that if the runner parts were made thicker to increase their strength, they became heavy, but if they were made lighter, they broke right away.

– Didn’t you think of making simulations using computer graphics?

Taniguchi I don’t think we could have got there with theoretical calculations. I don’t remember any other product that had so much trial and error. If you shift something a few millimeters, the movement changes. I tried and observed many times to see how the fabric needed to move in order to come inside, but when one part got better, a glitch appeared in another part. I think I can say that I finally got there after putting many measures in place. The biggest challenge was to move forward without compromising on the idea of an umbrella which closed with a single action. It was a project that required patience.

– This is an unprecedented umbrella that can be folded without touching its wet surface, but I imagine that this may have created new challenges.

Taniguchi Because it can be folded all at once, there is no time to shake off the raindrops on the umbrella. That’s why we added a stopper for drying which stops it midway. Also, the current product has a slightly fluffy shape when folded. We can make it thinner, but then it may feel difficult for children or women to open and close it. In order to find the optimum value for a smooth feeling, we asked the employees with the least grip strength in the company to cooperate in testing the opening and closing.

Synergy between bags and umbrellas

– What was the reaction inside the company when it was completed?

Taniguchi Actually, we were working on this from the beginning as a project that was top secret even within the company. Even though people saw me working on umbrellas, they apparently thought that I was developing the fabric. The reason we kept it under close wraps was because we were convinced that the structure was highly patentable. So we had a very limited number of people working on the prototypes, and for the first few years, most people in the company didn’t even know that we were developing an umbrella at Marna.

– “Shupatto” is the same name as Marna’s compact bag that became a big hit because you can fold it in an instant. Why did you give it this name?

Taniguchi There were two differing opinions. One said that there would be a synergy effect by overlapping with the Shupatto bags, while the other said that the bag brand and umbrella brand should grow separately. We are thinking of expanding our lines of both bags and umbrellas as merchandise that can be used anywhere in the world. At that time, we decided on this name because we thought it would be effective to join up our bags with this innovative umbrella.

– We can look forward to a global rollout, can’t we? Users comment favorably that once they have used the umbrella and experienced the comfort of being able to close it without touching it and getting wet, they can’t do without it.

Taniguchi The discomfort of rain days was something about which everyone had given up, thinking there was nothing they could do. I think people could really relate to the product as a solution to this.

– After listening to you so far, I think that the Shupatto Umbrella isn’t just a convenient product; it generates an experience that makes rainy days a little more fun.

Taniguchi That’s exactly what was important to us. Marna’s design philosophy is to draw close to daily life. How can we create “pleasant moments” that go beyond convenience? The Shupatto Umbrella is not only stress-free to close. I think its greatest value is that people feel good when it whooshes shut.

– The product has attracted high praise both within Japan and overseas since its launch.

Taniguchi Yes. It was a great encouragement to be selected as one of the GOOD DESIGN BEST 100 for 2023. I was happy that it was evaluated not for its mere shape or design, but as a “design that responds to a social issue on rainy days.”

I don’t care if I get things wrong: I’ll give it a shape

– Marna was founded in 1872. This year is your 153rd year. Does your experience and knowledge as a manufacturer of household goods lead you to solve problems that tend to be overlooked?

Taniguchi Marna started with the manufacture of Japanese- and Western-style brushes, and the company’s domain eventually expanded to encompass the development of kitchenware, bath and toiletries, cleaning tools, bags, and other goods to make daily life better. Looking at this transition, I feel that our company has no barriers to doing something because it is in a different genre: the idea of taking on challenges has always been deeply rooted. This may be typical of small and medium-sized companies, but it could be said that an ethos of challenge and freedom is our DNA.

– Since you’re not an umbrella manufacturer, you might have been able to think and develop it flexibly.

Taniguchi I heard once from a person who specializes in umbrellas that it was his dream to make umbrellas that could be folded at once and umbrellas that could be as small as a pen. But if you make umbrellas every day, there may be some ideas you can’t come up with.

– If you’re an umbrella maker, you probably know it’s impossible to pull the umbrella in with rubber even before doing this, so perhaps you won’t try it... We could say that it’s difficult for breakthroughs to happen starting from this position.

Taniguchi We wouldn’t have an idea if we could see it would fail, but there is a kind of “seed” that doesn’t develop unless we try it. In that sense, we are developing products with failure as a matter of course. Our mental barriers may be low. I tell my designers that I don’t care what they want to do, just go ahead and give it a shape.

– I think your own experience might have had an influence on how you were able to come up with an idea like this. What was your background leading up to joining Marna?

Taniguchi After studying industrial design at university, I was involved with automobile development at Daihatsu Motor Co., Ltd. I learned the rigors of mass production design and the attitude needed to work closely together with engineers to complete products. After that, I moved to a design office and then Yanmar, where I was in charge of business-to-business products. In fact, I felt some dissatisfaction because users’ feedback didn’t reach me directly. I started thinking that if I were to design in-house, I would like to create products that were close to everyday life. That’s when I came across Marna.

To be honest, at first I thought this was a bit of a strange company when I saw their unique products like the OSAKANA Kitchen Sponge and Pig’s Drop Lid. But at the same time, the fact that they had won many international design awards, including the GOOD DESIGN AWARD and the Red Dot and iF awards, showed me their commitment to design. I joined the company convinced that I would be able to design a wide range of products closely related to everyday life. I think I can do anything which falls into the category of design if I learn about it.

– I see. The challenge-seeking approach to the Shupatto Umbrella is connected to your personal trajectory, isn’t it?

Taniguchi Maybe so. I think it was precisely because I got my training in domains where there is little change, such as automobiles and industrial machinery, that I had a strong desire to tackle the challenge of an item like an umbrella that has had a fixed shape for a long time.

– Thank you very much! In this article, we heard the story of how Taniguchi’s and Marna’s fervent belief that they wanted to change the inconvenience of rainy days led to the completion of the product. In the second part, we intend to look into “Marna’s design thinking,” which lies behind the Shupatto Umbrella. We will explore the corporate culture that has won the GOOD DESIGN AWARD for 19 years in a row, and how this philosophy is alive in their product manufacturing.

In GOOD DESIGN TANBOU (= exploring), we will deliver interviews and introduce works based on a certain subject. This time, the theme is the “small business paradox.” Small businesses* tend to be at a disadvantage when it comes to market competition, but they may also have advantages such as being able to think freely and make decisions faster. We delve into such a paradox and the good design that is unique to small businesses. *Companies with capital of ¥300 million or less and with 300 or fewer employees

(Part 2)