{"id":41593,"date":"2026-07-27T09:14:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T08:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.naughtone.com\/us\/?p=41593"},"modified":"2026-07-28T10:11:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T09:11:36","slug":"designing-lotti-a-chat-with-keiji-takeuchi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.naughtone.com\/us\/news\/designing-lotti-a-chat-with-keiji-takeuchi\/","title":{"rendered":"Designing Lotti: a chat with Keiji Takeuchi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\" data-sourcepos=\"3:1-3:237;55-291\">Designing a cafe chair looks simple until you try it. Keiji Takeuchi talks us through the thinking behind Lotti \u2014 from a small painted prototype inspired by his daughters&#8217; classrooms, to the quiet details that deliver comfort.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" data-sourcepos=\"3:1-3:237;55-291\">In his own words, &#8220;Designing cafes could be an easy thing, but at the same time is a very complicated thing. It&#8217;s so normal for everyone to go to a cafe and experience a cafe. So if we do something very striking, or something that is very expressive, for some markets it might work. But I think, as a user, I prefer to go somewhere that is more calm and authentic as a cafe experience.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 1140px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-41593-1\" width=\"1140\" height=\"640\" autoplay preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/www.naughtone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/NOLOT_DesigningLotti_KeijiTakeuchi_web.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.naughtone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/NOLOT_DesigningLotti_KeijiTakeuchi_web.mp4\">https:\/\/www.naughtone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/NOLOT_DesigningLotti_KeijiTakeuchi_web.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\" data-sourcepos=\"11:1-11:25;694-718\"><strong>On where Lotti began<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\" data-sourcepos=\"13:1-13:427;720-1146\">&#8220;I take my daughter to school, and I used to see this chair \u2014 it&#8217;s small, but proportionally the tubes are large. Then I thought, maybe it&#8217;s charming to have this whole scale enlarged. So we focused really on this kind of authenticity of form, and a kind of typology of cafe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\" data-sourcepos=\"17:1-17:260;1185-1444\">&#8230;I look at manga, or Japanese cartoons, and I learn a lot about how they pull their sense out \u2014 like Miyazaki&#8217;s, for example, slicing cheese. The cheese looks more like cheese than real cheese does. That&#8217;s something I admire, and I&#8217;d love to bring into design.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" data-sourcepos=\"17:1-17:260;1185-1444\">Keiji built a little painted prototype, and it was really elegant \u2014 a lot of character.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\" data-sourcepos=\"21:1-21:30;1743-1772\"><strong>On designing for comfort<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\" data-sourcepos=\"19:1-19:296;1446-1741\">&#8220;Every different body size, body shape, gender, has their own subjectivity for what comfort is. Typically for a male, for example, we have more muscle in the back, so we want the backrest slightly more open \u2014 then you feel this hugging of the backrest towards your back, and you feel comfortable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\" data-sourcepos=\"23:1-23:179;1774-1952\">But if you let a female sit in the same posture, they tend to hit the spine first, and then it&#8217;s not comfortable for them. So we need to balance what is comfortable for everyone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\" data-sourcepos=\"25:1-25:387;1954-2340\">In general, when we&#8217;re designing the seats \u2014 say a plywood version and a plastic version \u2014 if we make the shape completely the same, the plywood is normally more slippery than the plastic. Not always, but depending on the finish. So we need a bit more dip in the plywood, to catch you \u2014 otherwise, when you sit right back and start to slouch, you slide off. Plastic has a bit more give.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\" data-sourcepos=\"31:1-31:89;2601-2689\">Designing chairs is very deep, and comfort is almost a philosophy. I think it&#8217;s endless.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Designing a cafe chair looks simple until you try it. Keiji Takeuchi talks us through the thinking behind Lotti \u2014 from a small painted prototype inspired by his daughters&#8217; classrooms, to the quiet details that deliver comfort. In his own words, &#8220;Designing cafes could be an easy thing, but at the same time is a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14501,"featured_media":41424,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[110,113,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-designer-interview","category-film","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naughtone.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naughtone.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naughtone.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naughtone.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14501"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naughtone.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41593"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.naughtone.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41616,"href":"https:\/\/www.naughtone.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41593\/revisions\/41616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naughtone.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naughtone.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naughtone.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naughtone.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}