Skip to main content

You're really going to want these minimalist Japanese Star Wars designs

Darth Vader never looked so cute and stylish

Source Nendo

Share this story

Japanese design firm Nendo has a knack for taking everyday objects like umbrellas and rendering them in a simple, thoughtful, modern form. But now the group has turned its focus to redesigning some more specific subjects — the characters of Star Wars. Nendo has created new, aggressively minimalist 3D forms for several characters and spacecraft from the series, suggesting that they could be licensed and used for a variety of products.

The 16 designs all share rounded top sides, concave bottom panels, and low detail that manages to be instantly iconic. Many of the designs are fully abstracted representations: characters like Darth Vader, Boba Fett, and stormtroopers have the recognizable elements of their helmets repeated around a cylinder, for example, rather than detailing a "front" and "back." This approach means that, when applied to objects like a coin bank or salt and pepper shakers, the characters are identifiable from every angle.

Nendo envisages widespread potential for the designs, from cups and paperweights to necklaces and bracelets. "The expansion of the product offerings can be infinite," the company says, "which provides a whole new fun and creative aspect of exploring the possibilities that resides in characters."

Nendo Star Wars designs

1/12