New French-Japanese Institute in Tokyo Website

Your Guide to Design and Pop Culture in Tokyo

Apr 28, 2006

New French-Japanese Institute in Tokyo Website

French-Japanese Institute in Tokyo

It’s nice to see so many of my friends here in Tokyo being so busy and productive with work lately. Paul — you might know him as Mr. TAB — just finished work on the redesign (with AQworks) of the French-Japanese Institute in Tokyo’s website, and it’s quite nice. This is what they have to say about the new site:

The Institut is more than the most popular French language school in Tokyo. With its regular festivals, expositions and performances, a multimedia library, restaurant, and cinema, it’s no less than the epicenter of activity for Tokyoites in love with French culture and language. All of this is now apparent on its web site, following the recent redesign by AQ.

The biggest improvements:
- Permanent individual event pages to establish a record that can be shared, printed, revisited and indexed by search engines.
- Vivid, human photography highlighting the institut’s charismatic teachers, and stylish yet approachable decor.
- A flexible, cross-linked information architecture that encourages discovery of other facilities and programs.
- A standards-compliant platform, ensuring accessibility for everyone, including visitors with disabilities, and optimal visibility on search engines.

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A longtime resident of Tokyo, he lives and breathes design, pop culture, and gaming, sustained by an unhealthy addiction to magazines and frequent visits to his favorites cafes. He has reported on these obsessions for various online/offline publications, including the following: Time, Inside (Australian Design Review), Gizmodo, Gridskipper, Kotaku, 1UP, 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, Phaidon, and The Japan Times.

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He also writes a monthly column covering Japanese product design for The Japan Times, called "On Design." It appears on the last Tuesday of every month, in both the print edition and online.

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