Categories
Design Events Technology

Reason Behind Forms

nosigner-100-gadgets-iphone-1

I’ve been a longtime fan and supporter of the work of Nosigner (aka Eisuke Tachikawa, whose monicker is now the name of his firm), covering many of his early works in my “On Design” column and elsewhere, and it makes me happy to see that he’s gotten to a point where he’s headlining his own show at the Ginza Graphic Gallery (“Reason Behind Forms,” running this month until October 31). One of the main installations in the show is what you see pictured, which represents all of the technology that has been engulfed within the iPhone. There’s more to see in this Spoon & Tamago post.

Categories
Magazines Music

Dustin Wong & Takako Minekawa

set-up2

Issue 8 of Singles Club — a fantastic subscription service I’m just discovering that releases vinyl singles that have a track on one side, and an interview with the creators talking about the project on the other — features a collaboration between Dustin Wong and Takako Minekawa, and you can listen to a track (“Payapaya”) and read quite a bit about their collaborations in this feature. Quite interesting to hear what Minekawa’s been up to of late. Found via Patrick Benny.

Categories
Photography

Rainy Harajuku

ctioxfxviaashqv

I love the colors in this set of four photos tweeted by TokyoFashion from a rainy Saturday night in Harajuku.

Categories
Games

Manifest Destiny

screen-shot-2016-09-25-at-10-57-18

I love board games and card games, and strangely enough I’d never heard of Manifest Destiny, a Japanese indie publisher that makes tons of card games, most of them designed by a person who goes by the name Kuro (real name Yasushi Kuroda). A lot of them seem to have English releases (or are multilingual, with English PDFs you can download from their site), and the one you see pictured, Garden of Minions (a solitary game) is getting good buzz at SPIEL 2016.

Categories
Architecture Stores

Ginza Place

ginza-place-by-kleindytham

The latest project from my former employer (and good friends) Klein Dytham Architects is a gorgeous one, and takes the form of the brand new Ginza Place building in Ginza, which hosts swanky new showrooms for Nissan and Sony. It opened today. Here’s how KDa’s Mark Dytham describes the project:

Our latest project, Ginza Place, opens to the public tomorrow. Located on one of the most iconic corners in the world, the Ginza 4-Chome crossing. Klein Dytham architecture in partnership with Taisei Corporation were responsible for the facade design and the overall massing of this new 11 storey building.

The facade, made from 5315 individual aluminium panels reflects the craftsmanship and quality which is synonymous with Ginza and JapanThe project massing takes its cues from the historic Wako building opposite with it’s clear horizontal banding which allow balconies on the 3rd and 7th floors to have unprecedented views of Ginza, Chuo Dori and Harumi Dori.

Ginza Place is a gateway to the re-birth of Ginza and has already become a new landmark for Tokyo and Japan ready for the build up to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The building is home to Nissan and Sony’s new global flagship showrooms and 5 restaurants and cafes.

You’ll find a few renderings in this Spoon & Tamago post, and we can expect to see more photos soon.

Categories
Cafes Events Games Music

Mother 1+2 Piano Concert

ctfp4mkuaaabuer

If I was in Tokyo today, I would have made a point of going to Joseph’s Pico Pico Cafe for a piano concert of music from the first two Mother games (known as EarthBound in the west) by Kousuke Hata. You can also purchase two CDs of his Mother music at the cafe.

Categories
Photography

One Hundred Views of Bathing

screen-shot-2016-09-24-at-11-23-27

One Hundred Views of Bathing” is a really fun photography project in which the artist, Mariko Sakaguchi, takes self-portraits of herself bathing in a tiny wooden tub in various spaces — basically, places you wouldn’t normally expect to see a person bathing. Found via Tokyo Soup.

Categories
Books Design Typography Web

A Primer on Japanese Typography

1-dx2adibmyxpqodaiyjikta

AQ‘s Eiko Nagase has written a fantastic article on using Japanese typography, that you should read now. It’s also going to lead to an upcoming book on the topic, A Primer on Japanese Typography, that you can pre-order here.

Categories
Advertisements Anime TV

TV Commercials by Studio Ghibli

screen-shot-2016-09-22-at-21-59-05

Over the years, Studio Ghibli (or its alumni) has produced quite a few animated TV commercials. My friend Christopher was digging these up, and shared a few, like this one for Nisshin (pictured), this one for JR West, this one for sake, for bread, and again for bread.

Categories
Manga

Popularity of Historical Manga

71c5fvj3l

The latest Monocle Minute newsletter talks about how there’s currently a resurgence in the popularity of educational manga, like the series covering Japanese history pictured.

Japanese publishers, ever on the lookout for the next big thing, have alighted on an unlikely boom: educational manga. A spike in sales of history comics was kick-started in 2013 by a bestselling novel about a school dunce who is transformed into a top student in record time. Keen readers spotted a reference to publisher Shogakukan’s 23-volume manga series on Japanese history and sales promptly rocketed. When the book became a hit film – Biri Gyaru (or Flying Colours as it’s called in English) – sales doubled. Other publishers have now got in on the act, rereleasing old editions with fresh covers and adding new titles to the genre. Kadokawa has sold more than two million copies of its Japanese history manga series in just over a year while Shueisha’s history series has been given a makeover with new artwork and will go on sale in October. Sanseido, a venerable bookshop in Tokyo’s Jimbocho district, reports that grandparents have been buying multiple volumes of manga for their grandchildren.