Yamaha’s ‘Designed by Nature’ clarinets win Red Dot Design Award

Yamaha Corporation has won a “Red Dot Design Award: Design Concept 2025” for its prototype clarinet series, “Designed by Nature”. The series challenges conventional manufacturing by creating high-quality instruments from wood with natural imperfections that would typically be discarded.

The four award-winning prototypes, named “KINTSUGI”, “SHIRATA” (Sapwood), “FUMOKU” (Grain), and “IRIKAWA” (Bark), are crafted from African Grenadilla wood. This material, prized for its acoustic properties, takes 70 to 100 years to mature, making it a finite and valuable resource. In standard production, wood with cracks, knots, or colour variations is rejected to ensure uniformity. Yamaha’s new concept embraces these features as unique design elements.

The KINTSUGI model draws inspiration from the traditional Japanese art of repairing broken pottery, using gold to mend and accentuate the wood’s natural cracks. The other three models in the series are designed to highlight the distinct character of features such as sapwood, mottled grain, and bark inclusions, turning perceived flaws into marks of individuality.

Through this project, Yamaha continues exploring ways to effectively utilise limited natural materials while engaging with the individuality of the wood to bring out its unique qualities.