Interview: Fiona Lee of Momiji

Published: Trespass Magazine

Momiji are message dolls. Hidden within each of them are personalised little messages inspired by friendship, love and little kindnesses. Created in 2005 in the humble beginnings of Momiji HQ, located in a little village in Warwickshire, England, the dolls have since been sighted all over the world including designs from Malaysia to Chile to Australia. Each doll is designed with a unique personality in mind, a particular favourite of mine is the Mika doll; she loves Spiderman and New York and makes up part of Momiji’s Itchy Feet Dolls Collection.

Momiji is also a collective that works with upcoming and emerging designers, and often source artists from colleges around England. Trespass chats to Melbourne-based artist, Fiona Lee who is Australia’s Momiji Designer. We find out more about the company and the new range of Christmas dolls (Pudding, Robin and Sparkle) that Lee has designed.

Tell us about your role in Momiji: 

I am the Momiji Designer Down Under! Momiji have designers from all over the globe and here in Australia, I work with the good people at Momiji to create designs for some of their packaging, support merchandise and most recently, dolls as well. 

What is Momiji and where does the name come from?

Momiji are message dolls inspired by friendship and little kindnesses. They’re about filling life with memories and messages . . . all packaged up in cute little doll.

I understand that each doll has its own character and personality – what inspires each creation? Are any based on real people?

I can’t speak for all dolls designed by Momiji however, the 3 I designed — Robin, Sparkle & Pudding are inspired by myself and my colleagues at Studio Pounce. Robin is based on me as I used to have a bob hairdo and often squish-hug my pet cats. Sparkle is based on my colleague Chris Starr as his last name has earned him the nickname ‘Sparkles’, and Pudding is based on my colleague Ryan Taylor as he is one amazing cook and often makes us a mean lunch.

Do you have a favourite doll?

Is it ok to say Robin for obvious reasons?

Where does the Asian inspiration come from?

Momiji dolls are a mix of traditional Japanese culture, modern Tokyo-pop and an injection of Britishness. I like that Momiji have incorporated modern Japanese culture into their dolls, with funny sayings for each character. These sayings echo the cute English saying you can sometimes find on Japanese products . . . especially on Japanese stationery!

The packaging for Momiji is particularly beautiful. Could you break down the creative process that inspired the design?

The first pieces of packaging I worked with Momiji to create were the brown Noodle Boxes for their Randoms Dolls range. Momiji came to me with the idea of noodle box packaging and asked me to design one for each of their 9 dolls. I noticed that each doll had its own unique dress design so I took elements of these graphics and re-drew them in a more stylised and bold manner. I also treated the dolls in the same way and soon I had a library of these very cute, very simple and colourful illustrations. From there I used each unique motif and created a pattern to sit inside the box. All throughout the process I would shoot Momiji concepts, odd-ideas, colour samples and layouts and we would workshop what we thought would look best and be most Momiji-esque. It took some time in the beginning to decide on the look, however, once the first round of Noodle Boxes were produced, Momiji liked the style we had created together and asked for more products with the same feel such as the mugs and notebooks. It was quite easy then to apply the same characteristics to other applications and a range started to grow.

Is it true that Momiji is also a network that brings art students together?

To continue reading this interview, do so on Trespass by clicking here.

Advertisement