Entrepreneur Plus - Short White
For Subscribers

How Muji Created a Cult Following of Design Enthusiasts Its products have no visible brand identifiers -- and that's proven to be a good thing.

By Carren Jao

This story appears in the August 2015 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

Joe Schmelzer
Neat and clean: Housewares at Muji’s Hollywood Boulevard store.

Tucked behind a CVS Pharmacy and a Marshalls on Hollywood Boulevard sits the Los Angeles outpost of Muji, a Japanese brand that is venerated by design enthusiasts around the world.

The store offers a bastion of calm amid the chaos of the boulevard, where character actors do their best Marilyn Monroe or Charlie Chaplin impersonations. Inside the 8,600-square-foot Muji space, with its exposed brick columns and reclaimed wood finishing, are orderly displays of minimalist furniture, housewares, apparel, stationery, food and electronics. The elegantly designed products, which carry no visible brand identifiers, evoke a subtle aesthetic that entices customers to come closer. It is that laid-back beauty, that determination to offer tranquility in a world of noise, that has earned the brand a cult following.

This is a subscriber-only article. Join Entrepreneur+ today for access

Editor's Pick

Related Topics

Branding

When to Know If Rebranding the Right Move For You — and What You Should Focus on When It's Time

Discover if rebranding is what your company needs to work on by asking yourself key questions about why you want to rebrand in the first place and which key areas are most important to focus on, whether that be a refresh, partial or full rebrand.

Operations & Logistics

3 Ways Logistics Leaders Can Edge the Competition by Embracing Industry Problems

Success often comes to those who stay focused on the problems they're trying to solve, rather than getting fixated on their solution.

Innovation

If You Want to Be an Industry Leader, Be an Industry Innovator. Here's How to Inspire Innovation in Your Business.

Innovation isn't just about making something new; it's about improving something.

Business News

Target Will Close 9 Stores Across 4 States Due to Ongoing Crime That's 'Threatening the Safety' of Customers and Employees

Target stated that it "invested heavily" in efforts to combat crime, but it just didn't work.

Business News

Here's the Secret to Growing Your Small Business, According to Execs at UPS, Airbnb, Mastercard, and Other Big Brands

These 10 executives work at big companies, overseeing programs that help small business. Here's the advice they wish all small business owners were getting.