Categories
Design Events

Planning for Design

I was was planning on writing some sort of guide for the various design events taking place this week (Designer’s Week has already started, or at least the container exhibition in Odaiba has, and Designer’s Block starts tomorrow). Not really a guide, but more of a plan of what I plan on seeing with Jesper, who will be in town for a week and a half. I have a bit of headache tonight, so I’ll try to get something done tomorrow night. For now, the only thing I know for sure is that as Jesper arrives Thursday, on that night I’ll bring him to Pause. On Friday night, I think the plan is that we’ll meet in Aoyama after I’m done work, go to the exhibition happening at the Idee shop (until 21:00), and then probably go to Office. Anyone in the area should come down for a drink and a chat.

Categories
Art Design Events Web

Tokyo Art Beat

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The biggest thing to have happened while I was experiencing my domain problems was the launch of Tokyo Art Beat, a new indispensable site for anyone who’s into art/design events happening in Tokyo, and best of all, in English!

Your TV has 12 channel, Tokyo has over 300 art venues. Tokyoartbeat.com offers the most comprehensive listings of art & design related events in the Tokyo area with permanently more than 150 events & 300 venues’ details. All are cleverly classified by categories, areas, time schedules or interests and allow you to discover, in just a few clicks, the wealth of culture pounding and resonating throughout the city.

Paul of IN-duce is one of the people behind the project, and I am so happy to see it finally launch. Yes, I’m going to be using TAB quite a lot (and so will most of the Tokyo-based readers of this site), and you will definitely be getting links to it when I mention events I plan on checking out. I mean, really, the site is amazing. For every event happening, you get detailed info on fees, times, adresses, maps, access points, a QR barcode to view a map on your mobile, and some of the listings even mention other shows taking place nearby, so you can plan an afternoon out. You also get special categories that will be very useful: last few days, just started, free entrance, open late…

And kudos for the tagline: Art and Design Amplifier. Yeah.

Categories
Design Film

The Big Idea

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You need to get yourself to the Getty Images sponsored The Big Idea video project page. Pictured above is a still from the Tsujikawa Koichiro directed “Eyes,” featuring music by Cornelius. The other contributors are: Intro, Plus et Plus, Logan, Pleix, The Glue Society, and Marc R Wilkins. There are also nice “making of” documentaries. The latest RES DVD features two of the videos, including “Eyes.”

All these sponsored video projects (like the recent Nike “Art of Speed,” and the Diesel “Dreams” promotion) are contributing to a trend that I’m really liking.

Categories
Design Stores

Plusminuszero Aoyama

I just learned that a new Plusminuszero shop opened in Aoyama yesterday (previously they only had one showcase shop in Coredo Nihonbashi). There’s a map to the shop here.

Categories
Design Events

Sugiura Kohei

The start of a new month always means it’s time to check out the new exhibition at the Ginza Graphic Gallery. This month, starting on the 5th, we get “Kohei Sugiura: A Whirlwind Half-Century in Magazine Design.”

Through five decades Kohei Sugiura has been a revolutionary innovator in all aspects of graphic design, with a core focus on book design, editorial work and typography. In collaboration with his highly talented staff, like a whirlwind he has created an inexhaustible wealth of works of remarkable strength.

For this forthcoming exhibition, the spotlight is being trained on Sugiura’s accomplishments in magazine design, a field that has always had special importance within his broad palette of endeavors. The show will feature roughly 500 of the more than 2,000 works he has produced in magazine design. In tandem with the exhibition, a collection of Sugiura’s works is being published and two Gallery Talk sessions will be convened.

Being the magazine nut that I am, you just know I’m going to be there. Until October 30.

Categories
Design Events

Designer's Block/Week Preparations

A reader asked me this week for suggestions regarding next week’s Designer’s Block/Week, and I honestly haven’t really had a look at the schedule yet to see what I will visit. I’ll have a look this weekend, and probably post something about what I’ll try to check out (meaning, whatever is free). Also, TSiG master Jesper is arriving next week, and I imagine I’ll be accompanying him to some of the events (as well as some Swedish Style happenings, which are happening pretty much at the same time).

I notice that the latest issue of METROPOLIS, which came out today, features an article on all these design events, offering a few suggestions (here’s a temporary link to the article – after a week, look for the feature from issue 549).

Categories
Design Events

Reactivity

Toe of Groovisual Diary went to the current ICC exhibition, “Reactivity,” and she has tons of cool pics to show for it. Really makes me want to go to this. It lasts until October 17.

Categories
Design Events

Looking for Pravda

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I am so there.

First of all, we’re not talking about a Russian journal here, but Pravda, a French comic heroine in the 1960s. Rumor has it that the character that combines beautiful looks with steadfast action was modeled after Francoise Hardy. Remember “Comment te dire adieu”? Well, however, this time the pop icon appears in Tokyo in the form of an installation by Katayama Masamichi. The Groovisions team is in charge of the graphic design, accompanied by music from Fantastic Plastic Machine’s Tanaka Tomoyuki. Sounds like a pretty snazzy event. Host, by the way, is design brand Celine. Hmmm… (REALTOKYO)

It happens at ONE Omotesando Boutique Gallery Space, until October 24.

Categories
Design

Braniff with Style

Oh, what I would do to see the return of a Braniff-like airline! I went to the Braniff Airline exhibition today, at Parco Museum, and it so got me wanting to have been an airline traveller in that era (sixties and seventies). Style was as important as anything else, and they had it in droves. Pucci-designed uniforms, multicolored planes… Flying is such a depressing thing these days, and it just seems to be getting worse. Unless you can afford first/business class that is, and even then, it’s technological and spatial comfort that you’re getting, not the feeling of flying in style that you had with a Braniff-like airline. I want to enjoy air travel, to feel like I’m going through an exciting experience, not just a means of getting from one point to another. It seems that the time could be right for an airline to do something like that, what with the growing popularity of boutique/designer hotels. A lot of people seem to be ready to pay a bit more for style, and that’s a good thing. Without style, all we have is a utilitarian system that lacks the excitement that might help get the whole airline industry out of the financial hole they find themselves in these days.

Categories
Design MoCo Loco

Kouchi Market

The latest entry I wrote for MoCo Tokyo is about the very nice-looking Kouchi Market at the Tsukiji fish market. With the MoCo site I need to be a bit more careful about images I use, and the one from their official site wasn’t so great. To get a better idea of what the place looks like, have a look here. Also, I first learned about the place in the latest issue of MONITOR, which has an absolutely beautiful pictorial of it.