Nagaya ‘Dezi’ Akihiro is head of design at Yanmar

Artist, sculptor, musician and pioneer of cutting-edge Japanese automotive thinking, Nagaya ‘Dezi’ Akihiro is head of design at Yanmar.

Nagaya ‘Dezi’ Akihiro has a lot in common with legendary 16th century Japanese Samurai Miyamoto Musashi. They are both polymaths – not satisfied with being good at just one thing. While Musashi-san was an exceptional swordsman, he was also a philosopher and accomplished writer. Dezi, meanwhile, is Musashi’s 21st century protégé, in that he is an accomplished artist, sculptor, musician and pioneer of some of the most influential thinking in Japanese automotive design of the last four decades. 

Dezi is now Chief Branding Officer at the Yanmar Group. Innovation and design run deep throughout Yanmar’s 111-year history, ever since founder Yamaoka Magokichi started manufacturing the world’s first practical small diesel engine. Since joining Yanmar in 2022, creatively-minded Dezi has felt at home, and is rising to the challenge the company has set itself to use the best designs to solve the world’s most pressing food and energy problems.

“Yanmar is striving to answer the biggest challenges the human race faces,” says Dezi. “We are doing this through efficient, climate-friendly clean energy solutions, and encouraging innovations in agriculture that foster effective food production. We are answering these gigantic contemporary questions with simple solutions.”

Since joining, Dezi has spent his time touring the company and absorbing the culture and creativity that defines the spirit of Yanmar. This information he processes on his daily 5km runs. Now aged 62, he retains the energy and enthusiasm that has made him such an influential creative design force over the last 40 years.

Born in 1960 in Nagoya (between Tokyo and Osaka), Dezi does not come from an artistic background. His parents had everyday jobs and were part of the generation that created Japan’s post-war economic miracle. While his parents were working, the young Dezi immersed himself in his drawings, and was soon winning prizes for his art and sculpture. This winning trend continued after completing a degree in Art and Design. In his first job in Toyota’s design department, one of his sketches for the all-important front-end styling of the first ever Lexus luxury car was chosen for the final design – even though he was the most junior designer on the team. After nearly three decades with Toyota he found himself as the then world’s largest car company’s design chief. This was followed by a stint heading the design department of iconic Japanese motorbike and marine engine manufacturer Yamaha.

When it comes to automotive design, Dezi has ‘been there, done that’. So, can he answer the question ‘what makes good design?’  “It’s a mixture of understanding the mechanics and knowing how to package them in a way that meets performance and safety considerations, but also stirs emotions,” he says. “The emotional element is crucial – it can be the best product in the market technically, but if people don’t ‘get’ the look of it, it will be a failure. We can’t be boring – we need to make a sensation!”

Not all of Dezi’s designs have been a success: the shape of the last LS400 Lexus – over which he was design chief – didn’t prove so popular with customers. Now working at Yanmar on industrial equipment such as compact construction equipment, do customers really care about how their machines look?