News room

ITOKI CORPORATION (Headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Koji Minato) has received a total of six awards at the "2026 Good Design Awards" hosted by the Japan Institute of Design Promotion: five products and one communication product. Among these, "ALLROUND" from the office furniture brand "NII" was selected for the "Good Design Best 100," which is awarded to 100 products chosen for "designs that open up tomorrow and designs that suggest the future."

Past awards can be found here: DESIGN AWARD | Company Information | ITOKI Company Information Site

ALLROUND from the office furniture brand "NII" is a stool designed for people working in offices and co-creation spaces. Its robust and primitive design, constructed entirely of metal, ensures it can be used across generations and work styles. Built-in casters allow for smooth movement, and the parts can be disassembled and flat-packed, making it a sustainable design in terms of transportation and storage.

(Judge's comments)
This design offers a clever and innovative reinterpretation of the traditional single-legged bar stool. Eye-catching with its striking color variations, this stool boasts thoughtfully designed, practical hidden features. Its robust construction connects strong cast aluminum discs at the top and bottom to an extruded aluminum support in the center, and it's available in two heights. The lower version features a bottom disc that functions as a convenient footrest. Eight concealed wheels allow for smooth gliding across the floor. Smooth grip handles are integrated into the underside of the seat disc's edge, making the stool effortlessly movable. With its powerful design and thoughtful details, this is a versatile and excellent product suitable for a variety of uses.

Director/Designer: Hirotaka Tako, Chief Creative Director, ITOKI CORPORATION
Product page: NII | ALLROUND

This support stool helps ensure accurate and safe work for healthcare professionals. Its compact design makes it easy to handle even in confined spaces, while its stable seat provides excellent support. Intuitive operation and an easy-to-clean shape ensure both ease of movement and cleanliness, contributing to reduced strain and a more secure working environment.

(Judge's comments)
What makes this stool so remarkable is that it addresses many of the challenges required in medical settings simultaneously within a single, simple form, rather than by building up functions individually. It doesn't overtly emphasize individual solutions or innovations, but subtly weaves them into its form and materials, avoiding the impression of being solely for medical use. The stool itself is of high quality, enhancing the quality of the space it occupies, creating a comfortable medical environment for both healthcare professionals and patients. We highly commend its level of perfection, elevating it beyond the realm of a typical medical stool to an attractive chair that you'd want to use anywhere.

Producer: Yuka Midorikawa, ITOKI CORPORATION
Designer: Shunta Naruse, ITOKI CORPORATION
Product page: Support Stool S | ITOKI Product Catalog

HAKUSAN is a chair that combines individuality and universality, made from a die-cast aluminum and steel frame with an 11-piece plywood shell. The frame, integrated with the armrests, is constructed from straight tubes, making it elegant yet robust, easy to move, allowing you to sit in any direction, and easy to stack. Its refined appearance can be described as a new archetype for stacking chairs.

(Judge's comments)
An innovative design that places the center of gravity beneath the armrests allows for easy lifting, carrying, and stacking, while minimizing wobbling. The rear legs seamlessly connect to the armrests, while the independent front legs create an open seat surface, allowing for a more relaxed sitting posture. When stacking, they slide almost horizontally, making everyday handling easy. The elegant balance of visual lightness, stability, and comfort makes it a versatile presence in both workplace and social environments. Meticulous finishing and vibrant colors further enhance its individuality.

Director: Hirotaka Tako, Chief Creative Director, ITOKI CORPORATION
Designer: Industrial Facility
Product page: NII | HAKUSAN

SHIGA is a work chair that incorporates ergonomically designed reclining, functions, and surface shapes. By carefully selecting adjustment functions to suit modern work styles, it can be operated instantly by different users. It offers a wide variety of armrests and legs, as well as unprecedented colors and finishes, and achieves harmony with diverse spaces through innovative back shape and a slim seat base.

(Judge's comments)
The chair boasts a simple design that minimizes its mechanical appearance while incorporating all the necessary functions. The balance between the fabric-covered back and seat and the metal frame is beautiful, and meticulous design ingenuity is evident throughout, seamlessly integrating functionality into a clean and uncluttered appearance. In addition to its versatility that allows it to blend naturally into various spaces, its operation is intuitive and smooth. Furthermore, the fact that parts can be replaced with common tools, or even without tools at all, demonstrates thoughtful design that ensures long-term use, which is highly commendable.

Producer: Yoko Okamoto, ITOKI CORPORATION
Designer: Fumie Shibata
Product page: SHIGA Special Site | ITOKI

This display case is designed for museums and art galleries, beautifully showcasing both the exhibition space and the exhibits while protecting and preserving art and craft items in an optimal environment. It combines high levels of design, presentation, and exhibit protection, while its minimalist exterior blends seamlessly into the space. A unique mechanism allows for large openings, ensuring a safe and comfortable working environment for curators requiring meticulous attention to detail.

(Judge's comments)
The design, stripped down to the bare essentials to highlight the main exhibits, blends seamlessly into the exhibition space. Careful attention has been paid to the quality of the lighting to beautifully showcase the exhibits, demonstrating meticulous consideration down to the smallest detail. Even the wiring is neatly concealed, showcasing an exceptionally high level of craftsmanship, even in inconspicuous areas. We hope this product will pave the way for further success for Japanese manufacturers in this field.

Producers: Hidetoshi Yano and Hideki Shiozawa, ITOKI CORPORATION
Directors: Isamu Ishibashi and Hideki Shiozawa, ITOKI CORPORATION
Designers: Isamu Ishibashi and Akinori ITOKI CORPORATION
Product page: Altivista | ITOKI Product Catalog

This safety labeling guidance aims to balance user safety with the design value of products. It re-examines conventional, overly conspicuous safety labeling, designing a unique symbol that evokes flashing lights, while maintaining visibility and readability and harmonizing with the surrounding environment. This results in a new type of safety labeling that is resistant to peeling and maintains its functionality over time.

(Judge's comments)
Safety signs have always prioritized visibility to ensure hazards are not overlooked. However, if they are too conspicuous, they can detract from the product or space's image and be removed. This project is commendable for addressing this contradiction. In this case, they developed signs that are easily noticeable from a distance while simultaneously blending in with their surroundings. They also streamlined the wording, which had not been reviewed for a long time, and clarified the difference between warnings and cautions. Furthermore, they established common rules for color, font size, and placement, and have already implemented these signs on over 22,000 products. We also highly commend the fact that they didn't just stop at design, but involved various departments within the company and ensured that the signs were actually implemented and in use. This initiative, which balances safety and design, has the potential to spread to other fields.

Producers: Yoshihiro Teramoto and Rieko Miyata ITOKI CORPORATION
Director: Haruhiro Ezure, ITOKI CORPORATION
Designer: ITOKI CORPORATION

This event is an exhibition showcasing and introducing designs from this year's Good Design Award winners, featuring those that caught the attention of all 101 judges at the second round of judging, as well as their personal favorites, along with comments from the judges themselves.

・Stool ALLROUND (NII)
[Selected Judge] Himari Nishikawa / Architect

・Chair HAKUSAN (NII)
[Selected Judge] Shigeru Kubota / Architect and Spatial Designer

• Safety Labeling: ITOKI Safety Labeling Guidance, ITOKI Corporation
[Selected Judge] Junya Kamada / Creative Consultant, Art Director, Graphic Designer

In addition to the exhibition, the venue will also host talk events throughout the day, focusing on individual exhibits or personal interests.
This year, we are also planning a talk event featuring architect and spatial designer Shigeru Kubota, who selected the HAKUSAN (NII) chair as one of our featured items, and Hirotaka Tako Chief Creative Director of ITOKI.

No reservation is required, so please feel free to join us.

Established in 1957, it is Japan's only comprehensive design evaluation and promotion system. A wide range of subjects, regardless of form, are evaluated not only for their design but also for their process, ideology, and significance. Each year, the 100 entries that receive the highest acclaim from the judging committee are selected as the "Good Design Best 100."

Good Design Award official website: https://www.g-mark.org/

Itoki's Good Design Award history: https://www.itoki.jp/gda/