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Your Guide to Design and Pop Culture in Tokyo

This Week in Magazines

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  • This month’s edition of MAC POWER (204) features the “Creative Forefront of Asia,” which means spotlighting the art/design scenes of a few Asian cities. One of the articles got me interested in the following two Taiwanese design magazines: PPAPER and MOGU.
  • BRUTUS (606) goes to the movies with their “CineLove” issue, boasting coverage of 565 titles. As expected, you get various lists (in the form of an insert), celebrity picks, and a few articles that spotlight some of the latest notable titles and/or creators.
  • PEN (188) goes to school, or rather “Design Academy,” with a very enticing look at top design schools from around the world, inviting us to “meet next creativity.” I’ve never trained/studied as a designer or anything, but a lot of these institutes seem like dream factories to my eyes! The issue also features a rather nice guide to Fukuoka.
  • This month’s CASA BRUTUS (81) is all about “Paris A to Z,” which means that it’s pretty much THE guide you need if ever you’re in the city and want to know about all the design-related spots you need to see.
  • I won’t say much about the latest STUDIO VOICE (372), that covers 90s culture in Japan (“Cut Up 90′s”), since I expect Marxy to offer a more complete rundown soon enough. I was a bit surprised by their list of defining 90s records, as it doesn’t include a lot of things you’d expect to see there.
  • I can’t recommend the latest issue of DESIGN NOTE (10) enough, with its look at Japan’s major creative agencies, including attractive portfolios for each. There’s also an “Art Director’s Talk” with Yasushi Fujimoto (CAP), Kashiwa Sato (SAMURAI), ad Michihiko Yanai (Kaze to Rock).
  • The new issue of ECIFFO (49), the bilingual magazine that covers office space design, is a showcase of “Inspiring Workplaces.” Quite a few interesting things here, including some studies on what would make the best sort of work environment, as well as some rather killer examples that already exist.
  • I mentioned it before, but this month’s TOKION JAPAN (55) features a great cover story on Megumi Matsubara (Assistant) and Michael Thorsby (PMKFA).

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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 happens June 4.

We hereby define a new term, that of the magaziner, described as a person who exerts an unhealthy amount of love for all things magazine. The Magaziner is a site that mostly focuses on the intersection between magazines and the digital frontier, and what it means for the medium. This does not preclude the inclusion of a healthy amount of print love.

Codex is a weekly music podcast hosted by Jean Snow, recorded in Tokyo. Playlists for all episodes are posted on the site, and you can subscribe to RSS feeds of posts and episodes.

Jean Snow is a contributor to Arcade Mania, your guide to the arcade gaming scene in Japan (Amazon US/Amazon Japan). He also provided assistance on Tokyolife: Art and Design, a guide to Tokyo's cultural output of the past few years, covering the works of over 80 influential creatives.
He will be contributing to the upcoming fifth editions of The Rough Guide to Tokyo and The Rough Guide to Japan, due for release in 2011.
PechaKucha

Jean Snow is Executive Director of the PechaKucha organization. He also helps run the PechaKucha Night in Tokyo -- please get in touch if you are interested in presenting at a future event. For a more intimate salon-like discussion group, join him at his monthly PauseTalk event.

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.

You can subscribe to an RSS feed of this site, and also follow him on Twitter and Facebook, or get in touch by email.

 

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The "Jean Snow" logo is written using the free Kirimomi Swash 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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