ZNONZ Mission

– Motive for launching the business
 The company’s mission is not to target all consumers, but rather to offer products and services specifically tailored to the needs of those interested in a particular field.
 In other words, we provide:
 not products that anyone would want,
 but products that someone would want.

 The business emerged from a desire to dig up, re-evaluate, and commercialize numerous treasured ideas that are feasible, valuable, and backed by the many experiences of those who were formerly involved in the domestic manufacturing industry, which has been emaciated by deindustrialization, and who still cannot forget the glory of the past.

 I myself am also from the last generation to have known a time when Japanese manufacturers were healthy, busy, and active. And many among those older than me possess countless ideas and insights that they have accumulated through years of frontline experience, but they are faced with the dilemma of not having the place, colleagues, or money they need to bring those ideas and insights to the world. They are also approaching the end phase of their lives.
 Therefore, another of the company’s main objectives is to revive collaboration and achieve results with these people, who can be said to be brothers. This is also the reason we insist on our products being made in Japan.

We selected the name through a process of elimination. From among the 26 letters of the alphabet, we listed up all the combinations comprising only letters that are readable upside down. (So, A, B, C, etc. are not allowed, but O, H, I, etc. are okay.)
 We first came up with the spelling ZNONZ, and decided that the final Z would be silent. I like it, though it has somewhat of a strong sound.

 The hexagonal outline is a Necker cube, an object that cannot exist in reality, but which is intended to trigger optical illusions. It was conceived in 1832 by Swiss crystallographer Louis Albert Necker. When it was published, its puzzling nature created quite a stir, and later was taken up by M. C. Escher, famous for his illustration of an impossible staircase, and others. This led to the development of image printing, color printing, movies, and other imaging technologies that employ optical illusions. The ZNONZ emblem also includes the Izutsu-mon, one of the Japanese family crests, to express wakon-yosai, or Japanese spirit and Western learning. The emblem conveys the company’s positioning as a provider of various commercial products that utilize optical illusions.

The president of the company received the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award from the government in 2008 and the Medal with Yellow Ribbon from His Majesty the Emperor in 2009 for his invention of a microlens fabrication method. This technology has come to comprise several patents since the first patent application was filed in 1993.
 ZNONZ has continued to develop the technology as an extension of his work. We have already obtained several patents, trademarks, and design rights, and are in the process of filing international applications for them.

Representative Director
Yoshihide Yumoto