The Muji competition was as difficult to judge this year as last year, with many good ideas to choose from and quite a few problems with existing patents which defeated some entries. My personal favourites were the super thin hanger and the salt cubes. In the case of the hanger, the idea of selling a pack of 10 hangers which pack so precisely and would be cheaper than existing Muji hangers represented a very intelligent and useful piece of design thinking, while in the case of the salt, making them in cubes like sugar but reducing the scale for cooking purposes is a great idea. The difference in size is a warning that it's not the usual sugar cube and also a more precise system of dosing the salt than doing it by hand. I like the winning entry too, a towel which can later be cut into floor cloths. All these projects strike me as perfect reflections of the creative usefulness which is the spirit of Muji.

• Kazuko Koike
• Takashi Sugimoto
• Kenya Hara
• Naoto Fukasawa
• Jasper Morrison