Today’s tee, in honor of Jesper.
2005.04.30
Marxy is celebrating the Golden Week holiday by doing a series of interviews, that he’s posting on a daily basis. He posted mine today.
Comments (3) Category: Web2005.04.29
Damn, moblogging with Flickr doesn’t seem to be working very well. Some of the posts I’m sending are not posting. Take the last post for instance (”Paperback“): it didn’t post when I sent it from the store, and when I got back home I sent it again and then it posted. Has anybody else had this kind of problem with Flickr? This is really disappointing.
Comments (5) Category: Meta
A new collection of stationary goods produced by Delfonics and Groovisions based on the graphic design work of Dick Bruna.
With all this talk about the PSP (I’ll admit that I’m probably being influenced by the recent American launch), the hardware sales for the week of April 18-24 surprised me a bit (from The Magic Box):
1. Nintendo DS - 96,191 units
2. PlayStation 2 - 33,080 units
3. PlayStation Portable - 33,004 units
4. GameBoy Advance SP - 10,820 units
5. GameCube - 8,329 units
6. GameBoy Advance - 422 units
7. Xbox - 112 units
This could be a result of the release of NINTENDOGS, which seems to be doing really well here. It’s basically a puppy simulator, not a game. Think Tamagotchi, but with better graphics and more features.
Comments (8) Category: Games • Technology
Need some outing suggestions for the Golden Week? Looks like something interesting is finally happening at the KDDI Designing Studio — a live performance by YMCK tomorrow. It’s free, and you can get your tickets earlier in the day (the show starts at 18:30). Check out Patrick’s Agenda for more info.
There’s also a big creators event happening at Roppongi Hills (it started yesterday, and ends today), which I might try to check out.
Comments (3) Category: Events • Music
Time to schedule a visit to the ICC for their new exhibition, “Open Nature.”
“Open Nature” focuses on the “nature” infiltrated in our daily lives through digital information environments, and aims to redefine it as an “open” concept that clears the way for a broader range of relationships between art and technology. Seen through the filter of information technology, our perception of “nature” today extends to structures of various shapes and scales. Technology enables us to travel through virtual realities made from data gathered in outer space or the deep sea, or explore on a nano-level the nature of the human body through genetic engineering, thus it has made visible a nature we are unable to experience first-hand. In topics as odd as “mankind and vegetation”, “climate and architecture”, “spheres and sounds”, or “internet and marathon”, this exhibition presents works and projects from the fields of art, design, and architecture. The displays interlink and convert in a creative way a variety of different forms of information from a challenging new perspective. Qualities that seem opposing by nature, such as micro/macro, visible/invisible, analog/digital, or material/immaterial, melt together to form a new “nature”. Perceivable objects and phenomena invite visitors to imagine the vast amounts of information flowing dynamically behind the scenes, and ultimately embark on a quest to discover potential relationships and new possibilities. A series of talks, symposia and workshops are organised throughout the event. Check the ICC website for more details. (TAB)
The show starts today, and is on until July 3.
Comments (0) Category: Design • Events • TechnologyAs the previous two posts show, I’m finally moblogging again. As I said before, I’ve been wanting to include my moblog posts in the main feed, but still wanted to have a way to distinguish them somehow from my regular pics. Intro the “TB” icon (for TB.Movel) with the tiny mobile phone. When you see the following image at the top of a post, it means it was moblogged:
Another thing is that I had trouble integrating the moblog archives into my WP install — I was still using MT for that. I still have an exported file of the them, as well as all the images, so maybe one day I’ll find a way to do it (it could be a bug in WP 1.5). But for now, no moblog archives, and we start from zero.
Comments (0) Category: Meta
A great book I spotted at ABC. It features beautiful photography of filed objects. Stationery porn!
The ads on display this month along Omotesando (for Docomo).
Comments (3) Category: Advertisements • TB.Grafico
I’m finding myself strangely attracted to Mikako Ichikawa, and I’m not quite sure why. Even though she played a nerdy sidekick to hyper-sexy Eriko Sato in CUTIE HONEY, I thought she was the best thing in the film. Today I watched the anthology film JAM FILMS 2 (quite a step up from the first one, and does it ever make me miss the old TSUNKU TOWN TV show) and she stars in the terrific first segment, causing my obsession with her to grow even more. I really need to track down more of her films.
Comments (14) Category: Film2005.04.28
The Golden Week holiday starts tomorrow — I get one week off work — and there are usually special events that happen throughout the city, even though Tokyo tends to be sort of quiet, what with most people leaving for trips or going back to their hometowns. Looks like the Apple Store is going to be hosting some special events, maybe sales, and they’ve setup a page that will provide info starting tomorrow.
Tomorrow also marks the release of Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), and I can’t wait to play around with it. It goes on sale at 18:00.
Update: I pre-ordered my copy last night through the Apple Store, and am now anxiously waiting for it to arrive. I hope they deliver during the weekend!
Comments (5) Category: Stores • TechnologyThe NEW YORK TIMES has a piece on the RanKing RanQueen chain.
At first glance, the neon-accented stores look like the sort of generic gift shops you would find in a mall: Backlighted display stands hold magazines, CD’s, candy and lots of knickknacks. Closer inspection reveals that like items have been grouped together, and each product is accompanied by a small sign indicating its ranking within the category. The rankings are based on sales data from the Tokyu Hands department stores and numbers from independent research companies, and RanKing RanQueen sells only the top 3, 5 or 10 items in each category. The logic is simple yet compelling. Why buy any old sweet-potato candy when you can buy the No. 1 sweet potato candy?
Link via Marxy, who offers his own commentary.
Comments (1) Category: StoresHaving a PSP has completely changed the way I watch TV shows (I’m even watching stuff on it at night when I’m in bed), and although I’m quite happy converting shows using ffmpegX, the new Media Recorder VRX-02 sounds quite interesting. From Kotaku:
A Japanese company is developing a media recorder that can record video straight from a TV or DVD player to a memory card. The device can save in a variety of formats including the formats used for the PSP and Playan video attachment for the GBA SP and Nintendo DS. The $150 or so device is a small, sleek black device with AV inputs and four buttons. The buttons allow you to start recording, select format and mode. I hope there’s a way to control quality as well. Sounds like a must buy for anyone who wants to do routine television program recording.
More from the original Tech Japan article.
Comments (1) Category: Games • Technology
Jean Snow lives and breathes design and pop culture 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, Game|Life, and The Japan Times. He also manages the gallery space at Cafe Pause.
The Superfuture Superguides are a series of PDF travel guides to some of your favorites cities, updated monthly, and obsessively compiling the best places to shop, eat, and drink. The Tokyo guide is edited by Jean Snow.
Jean Snow is the design/culture editor at Neojaponisme, a web journal covering social and cultural aspects of Japan. Read the manifesto, by founder and chief editor W. David Marx, here.
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 happens May 12.
I write a monthly column covering Japanese product design for The Japan Times, called "On Design." It appears on the fourth Tuesday of every month, in both the print edition and online.
I contribute a weekly round-up covering the latest product and interior design happenings from Tokyo and Japan for MoCo Loco. It gets posted on Wednesdays, and you can find links to previous posts here.
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