Masahiro was born in Nagano, Japan, and after graduating from Kanazawa College of Art, worked as a designer with Sony Corporation in Japan and the US. He came to Australia in 1987 to set up the Australian Design Council’s Japan Exporters Program, guiding Australian companies in designing products and packaging for the Japanese market.

He then joined Design Resource’s industrial design team as Design Manager. Masahiro returned to Japan in 1990, and has maintained a strong relationship with Design Resource ever since. He has worked for major international clients in the fields of Industrial Design, Branding and CI, and has won a number of design awards. In 1996 he established DESIGN:Takahashi, a member of the strategic alliance that links Design Resource with design firms worldwide. He is also Creative Director at TCD, a Kobe and Tokyo based design and branding firm, where he develops branding strategy and consults on brand management. In 2009, Masahiro spoke at the 6th Industrial Design Symposium in Hong Kong, and at the World Industrial Design Day symposium sponsored by the Japan Industrial Designers Association, (JIDA)and the Japan  Industrial Design Promotion Organisation, (JIDPO). Masahiro is qualified to advise on matters relating to intellectual property rights, in addition to his internationally recognised expertise in product planning and design, marketing, branding and packaging for the Japanese market.

Masahiro is the author of From Idea to Product: The Integrated Design Process, published in English and Chinese by the Hong Kong Productivity Council, available from

http://www.hktrainingonline.com/eng/publication/epublication