Drawings and printed material, Ombra, vase 陰影（花瓶）繪圖及印刷資料

Designed for Japanese manufacturer Marutomi, Umeda Masanori’s Ombra is a family of small vases based on a modular principle. Identical cylindrical vessels of clear acrylic, each intended for a single flower, can be paired with different bases, designed in three profiles and nine colour options. The bases have two flat components that slot together and are held in place by a rubber band, forming a cross-shaped support for the vase. The cut-out designs represent abstracted leaves, flowers, and butterflies, indicating Umeda’s long-running interest in natural forms and their symbolism. Produced using recycled plastics, the Ombra vases also illustrate a growing awareness among designers and companies in the 1990s of the ecological impacts of manufacturing.



Umeda founded his Tokyo design studio in 1980, returning to Japan after working for over a decade with Ettore Sottsass at Olivetti in Italy. Focusing on both product design and commercial interiors, he has continued to explore colourful, sculptural forms that can be broadly characterised as postmodernist. Umeda was a participant in the radical Memphis design collective in the early 1980s, and his later work carries with it some of the same expressive spirit, humour, and interest in the symbolic associations of objects.