Shizuki Kajiyama RIP

This talented and gracious designer lost his battle with a terminal disease and has passed away. Tributes to the man and his work have flooded into CDN.

“We will all miss his elegant, creative calm,” wrote Simon Loasby of Hyundai. Well-known and respected in China, Kajiyama set up the first Visteon and Yanfeng studios in China. At that time he was a great source of direction and information to Car Design News, simultaneously keeping us informed about what he was doing and championing the burgeoning Chinese design scene.

Before moving to Shanghai, he worked in the UK, with Visteon near Dunton. Amko Leenarts, senior design director at Ford, wrote: ”Shizuki was my boss when I was interning at Visteon near Dunton in 1999. He was a great teacher and had an incredibly nice character. He sold me his Citroen Ami8 (one of only two in the UK), which my family still talks about. Thank you Shizuki for such memorable moments.”

Richard Chung of Toyota Boshoku Corp was good friend of Shizuki’s: “I remember meeting him for the first time when he was a first semester student at ArtCenter as I was a senior graduating. [He was always] the same modest, sincere, passionate designer who made others feel more important and appreciated.”

Abel Sampson, publisher at CDN said: “When I first went to China in 2003 I met three people and Shizuki was one of those first contacts. He supported everything we did in China and always made himself available to me for brainstorming sessions, which were always held over a fabulous meal. I will miss him because he was such a humble, understated person with an enduring passion for design.”

Everyone at CDN wishes to express our profound sympathies for his family and co-workers. As the outpouring of tributes shows, he will be missed very much.