Mr. Fumito Matsuda, Co-founder & Chief Operating Officer of HERALBONY Co., Ltd.
HERALBONY Co., Ltd. has a new business model that has been attracting a lot of attention recently. By making art license agreements with artists with intellectual disabilities and converting their works into high-resolution data to develop various products, events, and places, license fees for the use of art are returned to the artists and the facilities they belong to. We interviewed Mr. Fumito Matsuda, Co-founder & Chief Operating Officer, about this unique approach.
Co-founder & Chief Operating Officer of HERALBONY Co., Ltd.
―Could you explain your unique business model that features the combination of artists with disabilities and art?
We have contracts with artists mainly with intellectual disabilities all over Japan and have over 2,000 pieces of high-resolution art data. Our main business is licensing whereby we manage the copyrights of the works and give royalties back to the artists and organizations to which they belong.
In addition, we operate the art lifestyle brand “HERALBONY,” which incorporates works of art into products such as fashion and interior designs. We are engaged in various activities to change the conventional concept of art as welfare.
―I heard that it was usually difficult to make the art of disabled people into a sustainable business.
16,000 yen. This is the current average monthly wage in the case of Japan’s employment support type B. It is also difficult for welfare institutions or families of people with disabilities to promote works even when there are great ones.
As our goal is not merely to extend traditional welfare, we will continue to put works of artists with disabilities that we truly consider wonderful out into the world. In order to let the world know how wonderful the works are, we need various opportunities for exposure of them. We have pondered very seriously how to do that.
This year, I received a happy email from a parent of a contract artist saying, “My son’s annual income is now several million yen and he needs to file a tax return. The day may come when he will be the one to support me, which is something I’ve never dreamed of.” His world has changed from one where he earned 16,000 yen a month (or less than 200,000 a year) to one where he can earn millions of yen per year. We believe that our business can further expand the possibilities of artists.
―In fact, this year’s edition of the Listings of Societal Issues ,published by the Initiative for Co-creating the Future (ICF), features a work of a contract artist of HERALBONY on the cover for the first time.
The artist is Katsumi Sasayama, a contract artist of our company. She is always very calm and quiet. But when she starts creating a work, she drastically changes. She dynamically and carefully draws each line using thick and colorful markers. The work on the cover is one of her works drawn this way. I am very pleased to hear that the dynamism of the picture varies according to the viewer’s angle and thus matches the direction of the society that ICF is aiming for.
―Could you introduce some more contract artists for us?
Sure. Take Satoru Kobayashi, for example. He is a person who is intensely particular about writing by connecting letters with letters. At first, his schoolteachers struggled to find a way to correct this, but he eventually convinced them to see it as an attractive form of figurative expression, and this in turn led to a great flowering of his art. Currently, he is very active in his hometown Iwate, and his designs have been adopted for the uniforms of IWATE BIG BULLS , a professional basketball team.
Michiyo Yaegashi was 19 years old when she first drew her original picture, which I guess you could say makes her a late blooming artist. Since then, however, she has released a series of colorful and detailed pictures drawn with bold-brush markers and has been highly appreciated by the art community. Her works are adopted in various places such as on the packaging of bottles.
―You’re thinking that talent becomes true talent only when it is demonstrated, right?
That’s right. To that end, our company has three pillars: fashion, interior goods, and licensing. In the field of fashion, we have our own brand that combines Japanese craftspeople and artists with disabilities to output their products to society.
In the field of interior goods, we set up plans like, for example, one that lets money flow to artists with disabilities through someone’s stay in a hotel room where the artist’s design is adopted. We use works in places that draw a lot of public attention so that people will realize how wonderful the works are.
However, the licensing department is the primary pillar of our company. As I mentioned at the beginning, we apply the works of art produced at our more than 30 contract welfare institutions nationwide to various products, events, and places. The aim of this is to enable artists with intellectual disabilities to earn income in new ways. Although we have created so many different opportunities that I cannot even talk about all of them here.
―I’ve seen that your contracted artists as simply “artists” rather than “artists with disabilities.”
We do not use the term “support,” “contribution,” or anything like that, but instead treat people with disabilities as business partners. We would like to change the entire concept of disability by showing off their individuality to the world.
―I heard that you once saw something that convinced you that your desire could be realized.
Well, when we opened a store in Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi Main Store, with the display window for HERALBONY.I was so happy when I realized that there were works of our artists in the row of the world’s most famous luxury stores in a way that didn’t stick out. I think this kind of example will surely change society’s perspective of people with disabilities. I believe that the recognition of their individuality as artists will lead to a future where not only people with disabilities but also others can work lively in places that make the most of their unique qualities.
―What do you think is the appeal of works of artists with disabilities?
If you or I were an artist, we would create strategic stories and explain the context of the pieces in order to sell them. In contrast, these artists probably do not even think about that kind of strategy or evaluation. They draw because they simply want to. I think the greatest appeal is that their works directly convey such strong emotions.
―What made you decide to start business with the attractive art of people with disabilities?
Takaya Matsuda, our CEO, and I are twins, and we have an autistic brother with intellectual disabilities who is four years older than us. In the past, despite the fact that we naturally saw him as he was, many people said that they felt sorry for him, which made us feel strange. One day, we saw an art piece drawn by a person with disabilities at an art museum in Iwate Prefecture and were very moved. Then, we considered that the public image of people with disabilities could be changed by daringly and clearly saying that the art piece had been drawn by a person with intellectual disabilities and by confidently disseminating the fact.
―Your older brother of four years is at the core of your business. So, to end, please tell us about the meaning of this curiously sounding company name, HERALBONY.
To be honest, it doesn’t make much sense (laughs). When my brother was seven years old, he wrote this mysterious word everywhere in his notebook. When I asked him what it meant, he said he didn’t know. Even when people with intellectual disabilities find something fun, it is hard for them to verbalize it. At the time of our founding, we decided to use the mysterious word “HERALBONY” as our company name because we wanted to show the world that kind of “fun” by incorporating it in various forms into our brand. We will continue to make progress keeping this desire in mind.
| Company name：HERALBONY Co., Ltd. |
| Founded：July 2018 |
| Number of employees：22 |
| Main Business：Licensing artists with intellectual disabilities URL：https://www.heralbony.jp |
This article is part of a series of articles introducing venture companies working together as ICF members to resolve societal issues.