Best Design Agencies in Tokyo (2026)

Introduction

Tokyo has a deep bench of multidisciplinary design studios, and the 12 below were chosen for recent work, range across disciplines and evidence of an active Tokyo or Greater Tokyo office in 2026. Many of them take on graphics, products, spaces and digital work under one roof.

The city’s advertising market has long been led by Dentsu and Hakuhodo, so its design scene sits largely with smaller specialist firms and a few long-established groups. Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai gave several of them a large public stage: Nippon Design Center led the concept and direction of the Blue Ocean Dome, and WOW produced the dome’s CG film. In 2026, we+, TAKT PROJECT and DRAFT all showed at Milan Design Week.

The list is unranked, since the right choice depends on your brief and how you like to work. Studios focused mainly on brand identity are covered on our branding page, and product and digital experience specialists on our UX page.

The best design agencies in Tokyo

1. Nippon Design Center

Established 1959 · Ginza · ndc.co.jp

Nippon Design Center (NDC) was founded in Tokyo in 1959 and is based in the Ginza 4-chome Tower, with further offices in Nagoya, Beijing and Los Angeles. Its work covers visual identity, signage, web and app design, and typeface design, and it houses named studios including the Hara, Irobe, Daikoku and Misawa Design Institutes. In March 2026 the firm published a notice of the death of its supreme advisor, Kazumasa Nagai.

Kenya Hara and the Hara Design Institute led the exhibition concept and art direction for the Blue Ocean Dome at Expo 2025, and Yoshiaki Irobe art directed the identity of the Japan Pavilion. Other recent projects include the Daimaru Matsuzakaya rebranding, the Nihon University brand site and KOBELCO’s SK200 Series in 2026. Since the institutes have distinct leaders, ask early which one would take your project.

2. Good Design Company

Founder-led · Daikanyama · gooddesigncompany.com

Good Design Company was founded in 1998 by creative director Manabu Mizuno. It describes itself as a branding design and consulting firm, starting at the planning stage of a product or brand and carrying through graphics, packaging, interiors and advertising. Its awards list includes Gold, Silver and Bronze at Cannes Lions in 2023.

Client relationships tend to run for years: Nakagawa Masashichi Shop since 2007, Sotetsu Group since 2013 and HOTEL THE MITSUI since 2020. Its rebranding of Kimuraya Sohonten was covered by Nikkei Design and Nikkei MJ in 2026. The firm suits clients looking for a long partnership more than a single deliverable.

3. nendo

Founder-led · Akasaka · nendo.jp

nendo is a design office founded in 2002 by Oki Sato, with Akihiro Ito as co-founder and managing director. It works across architecture, interiors, products and graphics, from an office in Akasaka and a second base in Milan. It received an EDIDA award in 2025 for “hana-arashi”, and a Japan Good Design Award in 2024 for the AURA Water Server.

The client list runs from Alessi, Louis Poulsen and Paola Lenti to SNCF Voyageurs, Peach Aviation, The Pokémon Company and Sapporo Breweries. Its project list also includes the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Cauldron and an Expo 2025 Japan pavilion project.

4. Takram

Offices in four cities · Jingumae · takram.com

Takram calls itself a design innovation firm and organises its work into design engineering, digital product design, brand identity and experiences, industrial design and business design. Its Tokyo studio is in Jingumae, Shibuya, alongside studios in London, New York and Shanghai.

Its site shows client logos including Sony, Google, Toyota and Mercari. Listed projects include the H3 Flight Status Indication System, J.LEAGUE branding, NOT A HOTEL, the Goldwin webstore renewal and the LOVOT chair made with Karimoku. It is a good fit for briefs where engineering and form need solving together.

5. WOW

Offices in three cities · Jinnan, Shibuya · w0w.co.jp

WOW is a visual design studio with offices in Tokyo, Sendai and London. It works in advertising, commercial projects, exhibition installations and user interface design, and also makes original art for its own exhibitions.

Recent work includes around seven minutes of 3DCG film for the Blue Ocean Dome at Expo 2025, the null² signature pavilion at the same event, the Future Experience Theater at Takanawa Gateway City (2025), and the “I.CEBERG” project for TOKYO PROTOTYPE (2026). It also made the opening sequence for season two of “Kaiju No. 8”.

6. DRAFT

Founder-led · Minami-Aoyama · draft.co.jp

DRAFT is a large design firm led by architect and designer Taiju Yamashita, with 218 staff as of April 2026. It works across interiors, architecture, urban spaces, products and branding. InnoValley, its project for TAIYO INK, took the top prize in the Best Workplace category at the A&D Awards 2024, and Villa ASO won at the ICONIC AWARDS 2025.

Projects include Yokohama Timber Wharf, which opened in October 2025, offices for NTT Resonant, Kanematsu and Toridoll, and branding work for Tokyu Corporation. The firm showed “LAST SAMPLE” at Milan Design Week 2026 and opened a concept store in Minami-Aoyama in August 2026.

7. TAKT PROJECT

Established 2013 · Hakusan, Bunkyo · taktproject.com

TAKT PROJECT describes itself as a “design think + do tank”, with principal Satoshi Yoshiizumi leading a small team from Tokyo and a lab in Sendai. It runs self-driven research alongside client work and exhibits its concepts. Honours include Dezeen’s Emerging Designer of the Year in 2019 and an iF Design Award Gold in 2023.

Clients include Toyota, Sony, UNIQLO, ISSEY MIYAKE, SoftBank and Yamaha, along with institutions such as 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT and the Mori Art Museum. It held a solo exhibition at Milan Design Week 2026 and was featured in AXIS magazine in June 2026.

8. we+

Founder-led · Nihonbashi · weplus.jp

we+ is a contemporary design studio founded in 2013 by Toshiya Hayashi and Hokuto Ando. Its practice is research-based and covers products, installations and graphics, often built around unconventional materials. Refoam, for example, reframes styrofoam waste from Tokyo as a material of value.

Its site lists two brand collaborations for Milan Design Week 2026: “Unseen Objects / Overflow” with Heiwa Gokin, and “In-Between Matter” with Shimadzu at the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology. The studio also lists Sony, Marimekko, Isetan Mitsukoshi and Finnair among its clients.

9. NOSIGNER

Founder-led · Yokohama · nosigner.com

NOSIGNER was founded in 2006 by Eisuke Tachikawa and is based in Yamashitacho, Yokohama. Its services range from design strategy and branding to product, packaging, architecture and signage, with a focus on social themes such as resilience and sustainability. The firm reports over 150 international design awards, and Tachikawa was reappointed to the World Design Organization board in November 2025.

WAKERS, a storage furniture series made with Okamura, received a 2025 Good Design Award. Other recent work includes creative direction for Kansai Electric Power’s CQ BANK, the rebranding of CTI Japan and the branding of UMAMINO. Its disaster preparedness book was distributed to all households in Tokyo.

10. Bascule

Established 2000 · Azabudai, Minato · bascule.co.jp

Bascule is a project design studio founded in 2000 and led by Masayoshi Boku. It is based in Azabudai and also has a site at TOKYO NODE LAB in Toranomon Hills Station Tower. Its projects tend to combine interaction design, broadcasting and engineering in one piece of work.

In June 2026 it launched TerraCaster with Nippon Television, which shows the current state of the Earth from space, and in September 2026 it announced a physical AI entertainment project built around radio. Earlier work includes the KIBO space broadcasting project and the “This is Arashi LIVE 2020.12.31” online event. Bascule suits briefs that need a technical prototype as much as a design.

11. GK Design Group

Established 1950s · Takada, Toshima · gk-design.co.jp

GK Design Group was created by Kenji Ekuan and grew out of industrial design. It now works in product, mobility, environment, communication, design strategy and design engineering, through companies including GK Industrial Design, GK Sekkei and GK Graphics, with overseas offices in the US, Amsterdam and Shanghai.

Recent projects include a lifting-rope platform fence for railway stations (March 2026) and the AutoLib. automated library checkout station (November 2025). The group is a natural choice for transport and public infrastructure design. Ask which group company would lead the work, since each has its own discipline.

12. AXIS

Design company · Roppongi · axisinc.co.jp

AXIS is a Roppongi design company that publishes AXIS magazine and runs AXIS Gallery and the AXIS building, a design hub. It also runs two lifestyle shops, Living Motif and Le Garage, and the AXIS Font typeface.

Alongside these it offers client services in design consulting, production and planning. The gallery’s autumn 2026 programme includes “Industrial Romanticism 2” and an exhibition with Foster + Partners Industrial Design. Its editorial and exhibition background suits clients who need help framing a design story for a public audience.

What to look for in a Tokyo design agency

Start by finding out which discipline leads the studio. A firm with roots in graphics, such as Nippon Design Center, approaches a project differently from one that began in architecture and interiors, such as DRAFT, or in engineering, such as Takram. Ask to see two or three projects that resemble your own in scale and medium, since a broad portfolio can hide a narrow set of strengths.

Look at how the firm structures its people. Some Tokyo studios revolve around one principal, whose time is limited. Others run as named institutes or group companies, each with its own head. Confirm who will direct your project and how often they will be involved.

Decide how much research you want to pay for. Studios such as we+ and TAKT PROJECT build new material and technical ideas through self-driven research, and their exhibitions at Milan Design Week are a useful way to see that thinking. That approach needs more time than a typical production schedule. Good Design Company’s engagements, some now in their second decade, also show that long partnerships are common here, so a first project may be priced and planned as the start of something longer.

For overseas clients, check language and day-to-day working arrangements before the first meeting. Tokyo projects also tend to pass through many hands, across agencies, manufacturers and internal stakeholders. It helps to agree early where working files live, how feedback is gathered and who signs off each round.

How Fabric helps design agency teams

Fabric gives a design studio one workspace for its files, client feedback and team knowledge, with AI search across all of it. The agency setup works well for firms running several clients at once: one space per client, with briefs, references, design files and call notes kept together.

Multidisciplinary work produces a wide mix of files, from layouts and CAD exports to renders and exhibition films. Fabric’s cloud drive streams them on demand, so they take no local disk space and heavy files open without a full download. Search works by meaning across documents, images, PDFs and transcribed recordings, and colour search finds visual assets by shade. Similar search surfaces related images by composition, colour and subject, which helps when a designer remembers the look of a past project more clearly than its name.

Early-stage thinking can sit on a canvas, an infinite whiteboard that embeds Figma files and video and exports to SVG or PNG. It suits moodboards and exhibition storyboards.

For review, share a file or folder with the client as a commenter. Shared links work without sign-up. Through annotations, commenters can draw on an image and attach a comment to the drawing, highlight text in a PDF, leave timestamped comments on video and audio, and draw on a video frame. The team then marks each comment completed, so a round of feedback works like a checklist.

Finished work can be published as a web page, which is view-only and takes no comments, so it suits portfolios and final handovers. Add password protection for material that is not yet public.

Password protection is included on Pro and Team plans. See plans for teams.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best design agency in Tokyo?

There is no single answer, as the right studio depends on the brief. For large public and exhibition projects, Nippon Design Center and WOW both worked on the Blue Ocean Dome at Expo 2025. For products and objects across many categories, nendo has one of the widest client lists on this page.

What does a multidisciplinary design agency do?

It works across more than one medium, often combining graphics, products, interiors and digital work on a single project. DRAFT, for example, works across interiors, architecture, products and branding, and Takram combines engineering, industrial design and brand work.

What is the difference between a design agency and a branding agency in Tokyo?

Design agencies on this list work across several media, and identity may be one part of what they do. Branding agencies concentrate on strategy and identity, and you can compare them on our list of the best branding agencies in Tokyo.

Which Tokyo design studios have offices outside Japan?

Takram has studios in London, New York and Shanghai, and nendo has a base in Milan. Nippon Design Center has offices in Beijing and Los Angeles, and WOW has one in London.

Are all of these agencies in central Tokyo?

Most are in central wards such as Chuo, Minato and Shibuya, with TAKT PROJECT in Bunkyo and GK Design Group in Toshima. NOSIGNER is based in Yokohama, within Greater Tokyo.

Related lists

Design agencies in other cities: New York · London · Los Angeles · Chicago · Toronto

More in Tokyo: Creative agencies · Branding agencies · UX design agencies · Advertising agencies · Video production · Animation

Run your studio on Fabric: Fabric for designers · Fabric for creative teams · Best design feedback tools