A Day in Ginza

On Friday I had a morning meeting to attend, and when it was done, since I had a couple of hours of free time before I needed to head to work, I decided to go to Ginza. I started with the Ginza Graphic Gallery, where they’re currently holding the “2006 Type Directors Club” exhibition. It’s a great show, and you should definitely try to catch it before it ends (April 26). Then it was off to Creation Gallery G8 for the “Furoshiki” show. Again, quite nice, and I was happy to see that they had an affordable little book (only 300 yen) for the show on sale, which I bought. It’s a shame because I’d often like to get the books that galleries produce for shows I really like, but they tend to be so expensive (the Type Directors Club books are usually around 5-6000 yen). I then made my way to Matsuya’s Design Gallery, where I caught the “2006 Mainichi Advertising Design Award Exhibition.” I saw last year’s edition as well, and it’s usually well worth seeing. They also had a nice book for the show, but — no surprise — too pricey. My next stop was the Muji Yurakucho store, where I wanted to get lunch at Meal Muji, but the queue of mothers and their children waiting for a table was just ridiculous, so I just walked around the store quickly to see if they had anything new (they now have some new stationery products under their recently launched “World Muji” collection). I then picked up something to eat at a combini, and made my way to Shibuya. Before heading for work, I stopped at Tower Records and picked up the latest issue of METROPOLIS (the architecture/design magazine), which celebrates their 20th anniversary.