Hello Kitty for the Left Brain

Using Maths, Science and History to Give a Masculine Touch to Japan’s Cutest Brand

Owned by Japanese branding company, Sanrio, Hello Kitty is a world famous illustration of a cute female cat, which features on a vast range of merchandise. Up to now, the brand which is worth an estimated $7 billion has appealed to a largely female audience. However, with the help of Japanese design studio Nendo, in a collaboration with men’s lifestyle magazine, Pen, the character now appears on a line of T-Shirts with a new look, designed to ‘stimulate the left brain.’

The 8 new designs include ‘Radiograph Kitty’, which uses x-ray image to reveal Kitty’s skeleton, ‘Math Kitty’ which spells out the character’s name with numbers and symbols associated with math formulas, and ‘Physics Kitty’ which references Kitty’s height as equal to 5 apples.

‘There are so many possibilities when I just shift the frame,’ said the guys over at Nendo studio when we asked about the chance for more designs. ‘I guess there are so many unknown attractive points of HELLO KITTY.’ We found out more from the studio:

The Plus: What was the process behind coming up with the 8 versions of Kitty?
Nendo Studio: The source of inspiration was a “men’s study room” with archive books of literature, art, and mathematical science.

TP: How did you come to work on the project, and what were the steps you took to develop the ideas?
NS: It was the 40th anniversary of HELLO KITTY last year and we were required to design HELLO KITTY for men. We analyzed the character deeply and completely. HELLO KITTY is a character that has many elements that “stimulates the right brain” to naturally induce the feeling of “cuteness”. On this basis we thought up a way to appeal to a new target group by “stimulating the left brain”.

TP: How many of you are there at Nendo, and what other projects are you working on?
NS: There are 30 of us. We are now working on 300 projects. We will have a solo exhibition at Museo della Permanente We’re collaborating with 20 brands, such as Glas Italia, cappellini, Tod’s and so on. We also produced COOL JAPAN DESIGN GALLERY in Japan Pavilion at Milan.

Photos: (C)’76,’15 SANRIO
Lick here to read more about the concept from nendo.