Yuki Ito, the Multi Talented Japanese Product Designer
Ty HasegawaJapan Design Award
iF Design Award
Reddot Design Award
Exhibitor in Milano Salone
The person who won these awards is also a musician, artist, engineer, entrepreneur, boat driver, and angler.
Yes. The name of this person is Mr. Yuki Ito, who founded Megabass. Megabass is one of the most famous lure brands globally, for its uniqueness, beauty and performance. Obviously anglers admit that his lures perform superbly in the water. But it is not only that. He is not making fishing products but he is designing with his philosophy. The reason why his products are awarded for its superiority is from this philosophy.
In this article, I follow the biography of Mr. Ito, as its first part. And secondly, let us view some of his award winning products. Then as a final part, I will introduce his philosophy of designing.
Biography of Mr. Yuki Ito
Born in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, he experienced various kinds of fishing, and sometimes he was taught fishing from expert anglers and commercial fishermans. After he learned lure fishing in his elementary school, taking advantage of the natural environment, he was targeting bonito (skipjack tuna), seabass, Japanese catfish, snakehead and largemouth bass. Since then he had been producing lures by himself.
After he started working in Tokyo, he continued his lure making in his free time. And it turned out that he started to build rods in Tokyo in 1986, after he quit the company and established Megabass & Works. The first rod he was making was ARMS then. In the following year, V-FLAT and Z-CRANK launched.
After a while, he moved his factory to Hamamatsu, where the Megabass company is currently located. It was a very convenient place because the distance to the Biwa-ko lake is shorter than from Tokyo. Biwa-ko lake has been a center of bass fishing in Japan, and it was important to show the lure performance in that lake. Around this time, BAIT-X, Magical Z, and Marine Gang were launched.
In 1990, the Megabass company shifted from the small workshop to the factory, as it registered as incorporated status. This brought the change of company management and it started the OEM (production of other company brands) business and received jobs to design other company’s lures. The lure brands which were produced by Ito were Tifa Deep Shot, ZEAL, Sports Saurus, Waterland, Forest etc.
During 1990’s, Megabass made good sales lures such as DEEP-X200, Live-X Leviathan, which brought the Megabass brand to the top, making Megabass products booming. The middle of 1990’s was a booming period of bass fishing in Japan and energized a lot of legendary brands existing today. Among these brands, Megabass was the best, and the demand for the Megabass lures were so big that everyone could not buy, and sold at premier pricing. During this period, Megabass established the selling company in the US, Megabass USA.
The famous products in the 1990's are Destroyer, POPX etc.
In relation to the market in the USA. Edwin Evers who was a part of Megabass of America Inc sponsored team won Bassmaster Classic in 2016. In this video of Bassmaster archive, you can see Mr. Evers mentioned Megabass lure Flap Slap in addition to Andy’s E series Finesse Jig. In 2023, Megabass was supporting Brandon Palanuik, who is said to be inspired by Megabass’ Deep-X in his youth. Other US bass pros who Mr. Ito supported were Danny Correia and Aaron Martens, while Yuki Ito was working in the States.
In 1996, the rod Destroyer and PopX were launched. These products were developed by Mr. Ito using his experiences in Japan and in the States. These products concreted the reputation of the Megabass brand in Japan.
As his brand was gaining a solid position in the market, Mr. Ito himself became a publicly known multi-talented person.
Firstly he is a superb boat driver. He became a certified Gambler boat pilot, after he had contracted with Skeeter boat. His boat control skill had been brushed up by the Enshu-nada sea, known for its strong and continuous wind, and his brave maneuver in the rough waters came to gain the high reputation. In 1998, he broke the speed record with the Gambler boat of his setting, in combination with Yamaha V-Max engine. Later on, in 2018, he contracted with Mercury to get the engine for his Gambler boat (mentions about this in his blog.)
He expresses his love of music. He is a composer and singer, and his unique voice and nearly deliberate irrationality in melodies is attracting many fans. It is very unique. You can listen to his music in this YouTube video.
Together with music and boat, he is a superior disc dog player. (You can view a picture of himself with his dogs on this web page.)
His various kinds of activities and experiences from it flourished into the multiple winning of design awards from the middle of the 2010’s.
Designs and winning the design awards
To start with designing, I need to mention about one of his companies, ITO Engineering. It has been designing the parts for racing cars made from carbon materials, in addition to fishing products. Its experience of utilizing the carbon materials are given to other categories of products, such as kayaks and design of aero diffusers for cars. ITO Engineering is offering the tailor-made rods, and you can order Megabass to have your own preference on his rod.
With the designing skills nurtured in ITO Engineering, in 2010, the design expo held in Milano, Italy, Milano Salone had his products, Arms and X-pod. The precious scenes of Yuki Ito and his products in Italy can be viewed in this video.
And in 2018, Megabass products were nominated for iF (International Industry Forum) Design Award. It got the award with Destroyer rods, Great Hunting series rods, One-Ten lures,
Additionally, it received the awards in 2019, 2020,and 2021.
His pursuit of design has been continued and he won the award for 2024, with Orochi X10.
Not only the surface design, the special materials used in his products are highly valued, to win the awards. In the Destroyer rods, Mr. Ito applied the use of brand new production methods. And in the Orochi X10, he used organic material to replace carbon in one layer of the rod layering materials.
In Japan, Mr. Ito or ITO Engineering had been awarded for 167 products in the Japan Good Design Award. In 2023, Gohram lure and Orochi X10 won the awards.
In 2022, not only the Destroyer rod but also the Cookai saltwater rod won the Red Dot design award.
Philosophy of Mr. Yuki Ito
To introduce his philosophy in product design, it is the best way to translate his words. In the Megabass homepage’s concept page, his message about the Megabass is written and it shows the core of his philosophy.
“Megabass product is not designed not only from the idea of ‘Form Follows Function’ but also from the design philosophy of ‘Form Follows Emotion.’
The Katana sword, which samurai carried, held the sharp cutting edge, and at the same time it was finished with beautiful elaboration, made possible by the superb Japanese workmanship.
It enhanced its value as an artistic piece as well as its superiority in performance as a tool.
The artisans forged the sword with pride, putting his soul in it. And samurai treated the Katana sword with dignity and with heart and soul.
It means that Katana swords are not the tool to slice flesh of an enemy but the soul to live one’s life.
11 Megabass supported anglers had won the Angler of The Year, amid of the tough bass fishing tournaments in Japan,
Megabass tackles had become the winning tackles in more than 320 competitions, and each of them changed the life of anglers. And at the same time, it helped all the people engaged in the Megabass factory to make a living.
In the saltwater tournaments held all over the world, we helped 7 anglers to be champions and our products became winning tackles in 172 competitions.”
“In this way, as you can see in Katana swords, Megabass is trying to provide the ‘pride’ and ‘sensation’ to users, in addition to enabling anglers to get their ‘best results’ in fishing.”
“Megabass had made a lot of incidents which had changed the idea of fishing tackles.
While Megabass products have changed the lives of many users, I am also one person whose life was changed by Megabass.
Being so, I turned into one angler who pursues the pleasure and the depth of his life.”
To be a designer who can simply create something is one thing. It is another thing to be an award winning designer. It requires more than making shapes or adding functions. Mr. Yuki Ito can bring the heart or the spirit into his product, while the form carries innovative design. His spirit was nurtured from his passionate fishing experiences from his youth and enriched by his various kinds of activities. It made a man we are proud to have in our industry. We need to keep watching his activities for the future.
