The project Washi Futurism was initiated by two NL-based design duos, Cream on Chrome (Jonas Althaus and Martina Huynh) and Craft Portrait (Pauline Agustoni and Satomi Minoshima).

In the summer of 2023, the designers spent two months in Misumi, Japan, to learn from and collaborate with papermakers So Kubota and Masaru Nishita. Both are young successors of family businesses focused on the production of Sekishu Washi, a process designated as Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO.