Traditionally the Japanese are a patterned people who live in a patterned country, a land where the exemplar still exists, where there is a model for everything, where the shape of something may be as important as its content, and the profile of the country depends upon the contour of living.
The profile is still visible. To think of Japan is to think of form, of design as well since this triumph of form is mainly visual. Patterns are made for the eyes and names are remembered only if read. It is the country of the calling card, home to forests of advertising. Visual composition is not taught, it is known -- like having perfect pitch.
One could call all of this natural except that in Japan the natural is never enough. Forests become parks, trees are dwarfed, cut flowers are arranged and called living. One does not go against nature so much as one takes advantage of it -- smoothing, embellishing. Nature is only the potential, still necessary is the shaping and the meaning.