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Your Guide to Design and Pop Culture in Tokyo

Yume no Byouin Project

Yume no Byouin Project

Beautiful (and simple) site design featuring the illustrative work of Yorifuji Bunpei. Via Paul Baron.

Kodai

Kodai

Coming up at the Kakitsubata gallery in Nakameguro is the show “Kodai,” running from November 25 until December 6.

Kodai

The Dream Machine

The Dream Machine

Satoshi Kon’s next film is called The Dream Machine, and unlike his previous complex and adult work (Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, Paprika, Paranoia Agent), is being described as a family-friendly film. Here’s what Kon has to say about the film (taken from this interview):

On the surface, it’s going to be a fantasy-adventure targeted at younger audiences. However, it will also be a film that people who have seen our films up to this point will be able to enjoy. So it will be an adventure that even older audiences can appreciate. There will be no human characters in the film; only robots. It’ll be like a “robot movie” for robots.

The film’s official site now reveals a few images from the film, including the one pictured above. Via /Film.

Metropolis Cover Couple

Matt Alt and Hiroko

Very nice to see Matt Alt and his wife Hiroko appear on the cover of this week’s issue of Metropolis, as part of a feature on small business owners — you can read the piece online here.

iA3 WordPress Theme

iA3 WordPress Theme

Information Architects (iA) has begun selling the template for its site as a proper WordPress theme, and is using a “dynamic pricing” strategy to determine the selling price — they talk more about the strategy here. It’s currently selling for $33, but that will be for the first 100 purchases only, which will be followed by a price adjustment.

Conceptual Cafe

Conceptual Cafe

This could have been a very interesting cafe project, if completed.

In 2008 Japanese architect Hiroki Tanabe developed a small café house of 62 sqm — a two-story complex which has an elongated U shape. On the first floor there is a kitchen and the café doubling as living room. The second floor houses a bedroom and bathroom.

See a gallery of photos over at Designboom.

I Remember You

I Remember You

Science, metaphysicism, and architecture meet in Atelier Norisada Maeda’s “I Remember You” home. More at Spoon & Tamago.

Night Color Series with Cornelius

For its new “Night Color” series of black appliances, Panasonic enlisted Cornelius to create music for a special installation at Tokyo Designer’s Week. I didn’t get to see it because I didn’t want to wait in line, but now we get to see a video of it. Via Patrick Benny.

PauseTalk Vol. 35 Participants

It was indeed a terrific return to PauseTalk (Vol. 35) last night after a skip month, and I’d like to thank everyone — all 30 of you — who attended (and the manager of the cafe thanks everyone for all the drinking). If you haven’t already, do take a look at the great gallery of portraits taken by Max Hodges — he didn’t get everyone, but it’s certainly a nice representation.

Below is a partial list of those who attended — if you are not there, please let me know and I’ll add you right away. The next edition (Vol. 36) happens in three weeks, on December 7.

PauseTalk Vol. 35 Portraits

Perrine Valli

Last night’s PauseTalk (Vol. 35) was a great one — I’ll have a separate post for the list of participants — but I first wanted to share a terrific gallery of portraits that Max Hodges took after the official session was over. I’m not exactly sure what gear he was using, but it included a circular flash and a big box with lots of wires.

Pictured above, Perrine Valli, a French dancer/performance artist in town for a couple of months as she researches a piece on sexual identity, that she will perform at SuperDeluxe on December 1.

House H

House H

Even more than today’s HG House — yes, I know it’s confusing — I really dig Sou Fujimoto’s House H, especially the interior — it has an M.C. Escher meets Muji feel to it. Photographer Iwan Baan has a gallery of 40+ photos from the house. Via Designboom.

Ikushinsha Signage by Nosigner

Ikushinsha Signage by Nosigner

Johnny over at the Spoon & Tamago blog was right to feature the signage by Nosigner for an Ikushinsha cram school. I definitely agree, using a ruler as a graphic element in that environment is both thematically sound and visually pleasing.

HG House

HG House

Is it just me or does pretty much every architectural project that appears on Designboom and Dezeen — especially homes — come from Japan? Here’s another one, this time the HG House by Atelier Tekuto, which fulfills the client’s request of “living in the garage.”

PauseTalk Tonight

A friendly reminder that tonight (Monday, November 16) is this month’s edition of PauseTalk (Vol. 35), the first one in over two months. The official session kicks off at 20:00 at Cafe Pause, but feel free to join us earlier, from 19:00, to have a listen at Tokyo Realtime’s latest audio tour, covering Akihabara. So far, on the Facebook event page alone, we have 19 attending and 15 “maybes,” so looks like it’ll be a good one.

Cafe Pause Poster Series: Luis Mendo

Cafe Pause Poster Series: Luis Mendo

I’m very happy to be able to share the latest entry in my “Cafe Pause Poster Series” (#5), a contribution by Amsterdam-based art director Luis Mendo. You know about the Tokyo map he just produced for the next issue of Journal de Nîmes, and now here’s also his homage to the cafe. The concept revolves around the seats found in the cafe — there are 24 (all pictured), with 23 people shown, the idea being that the 24th customer is you!

The poster should occupy the entrance of the cafe sometime this week, but unfortunately won’t be ready for tomorrow night’s PauseTalk (Vol. 35).

PauseTalk

PauseTalk is a regular series of events that take place at Cafe Pause on the first Monday of every month, with a start time of 20:00. The idea is to create a forum where Tokyo-based creatives can get together and discuss their own projects, as well as cultural currents of the city. The next edition is December 7.

Arcade Mania is currently on sale through Amazon Japan and Amazon US. Tokyolife: Art and Design covers Tokyo's cultural output of the past few years, covering the works of over 80 influential creatives.

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Jean Snow lives and breathes design, pop culture, and gaming in Tokyo -- sustained by an unhealthy addiction to magazines and frequent visits to his favorites cafes. He has reported on these obsessions for the following online/offline publications: Time, Inside (Australian Design Review), Gizmodo, Gridskipper, Kotaku, Tokyo Q, Superfuture, OK Fred, Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, I.D. (International Design), Metropolis, Azure, MoCo Loco, Kateigaho International Edition, Wired's Game|Life, PingMag, CNNGo, and The Japan Times. He also manages the gallery space at Cafe Pause.

He writes a monthly column covering Japanese product design for The Japan Times, called "On Design." It appears on the fourth Thursday of every month, in both the print edition and online. He also contributes a weekly round-up covering the latest product and interior design happenings from Tokyo and Japan for MoCo Loco. It gets posted on Wednesdays.

Pecha Kucha Night

I'm also a proud member of the Pecha Kucha Night family, working on various projects, including updating Pecha Kucha Daily, a blog that highlights the creativity coming out of PKN events worldwide.

PauseTalk

I serve as editor-at-large at Néojaponisme, a web journal covering social and cultural aspects of Japan. Read the manifesto, by founder and chief editor W. David Marx.

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The "Jean Snow" logo is made up of the Blackout open source typeface. The "M31" logo is by Ian Lynam, and is part of a series of 31 unique designs. The site's design is based on the Grid Focus WordPress theme by Derek Punsalan.

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