Author: Jean Snow

  • Wedding Invitation

    To commemorate the wedding of Osamu Akatsu with Manami Kondo in Kyoto last month, Akatsu himself designed the beautiful invitation pictured here. Beast Pieces goes through the intricacies of the invitation, detailing the type of paper used, as well as describing how the one-color metallic design was achieved.

  • New Year Cards 2010

    Spoon & Tamago shares a few of the New Year cards it has received from designers and design studios in Japan. Pictured here, a card by creative director Yuji Tokuda for his communication design company Canaria. Tokuda is behind the “Retired Weapons” peace design project.

  • Sowa Unit

    Sowa Unit is a new project from architect Kensuke Watanabe, in the form of a rehabilitation center for mental illnesses located in Tokyo. The complex is made up of six connected two-storey concrete sections. Dezeen features a gallery of photos, as well as an explanation of the project from Watanabe.

  • Nekosaur

    Incubot, a new toy company started by Matt Alt and Alen Yen, has released its first soft vinyl figure in the form of the Nekosaur. The figure was designed by Yen, sculpted by Kiyoshi Ikeda (Gargamel), and directed by Alt, and is the company’s homage to classic Japanese vinyl robot toys. The Nekosaur will be…

  • Next Week’s PauseTalk (Vol. 37)

    Kicking off the New Year not only with a new episode of Radio OK Fred, there’s PauseTalk as well, with Vol. 37 happening this coming Monday (January 11) at Cafe Pause, with the usual start time of 20:00. Please note that the cafe is reserved from 19:30, so feel free to come a bit earlier…

  • Radio OK Fred 17

    Time to ring in the New Year with a new episode of Radio OK Fred (17), the “New” show. Well, it’s our take on new, and you’ll just have to listen to the show to find out how we justify some of our selections. Before you comment, yes, there’s a bit of technical issue at…

  • Hoto Fudo

    Back in October was saw renderings of the Hoto Fudo complex — designed by Takeshi Hosaka Architects — and now we get to see what the completed structure looks like, courtesy of Designboom.

  • MA House

    Another beautiful living space to drool over, this time Katsufumi Kubota‘s MA House, located in the city of Matsuyama. One thing I’m always curious about though — how do these spaces look after people have actually lived in them? Via MoCo Loco.

  • Space Battleship Yamato

    Here’s the first trailer — in the form of a TV commercial — for the upcoming live-action Space Battleship Yamato film.

  • MoCo Loco Top 5

    How’s this for a first post of 2010, a photo of myself! It’s actually for my “top 5” that was just posted at MoCo Loco. My selections are taken from all of the “This Week from Tokyo” posts I did in 2009, and are (in no particular order): Jo Nagasaka’s PACO, the Reading Lamp, the…