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Your Guide to Design and Pop Culture in Tokyo

Feb 23, 2007

The Secret Sense of Japanese Magazine Design

The Secret Sense of Japanese Magazine Design

When I was last at Junkudo, I spotted this terrific book, THE SECRET SENSE OF JAPANESE MAGAZINE DESIGN. It was put together by CAP — the company behind most of the great layouts you see in Japanese magazines these days — and covers the history of Japanese magazine design by spotlighting 12 or so magazines (titles like POPEYE, ESQUIRE, and STUDIO VOICE). The intro is bilingual, and the rest of the text is Japanese-only, but don’t let this stop you from picking it up, since it’s all about the layouts found within, and that’s what you mostly get here.

Also, while looking up the link for CAP, I was greeted by a major update to their website. Should now give you a better idea of what they’ve done in the past.

Category: Books, Magazines

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2 Responses

  1. Mike says:
    February 23, 2007 at 11:48 pm

    I am amazed that you haven’t mastered Japanese after so many years… Life is so much more fun in Tokyo when you speak/read the language.

  2. Jean Snow says:
    February 24, 2007 at 12:16 am

    It’s my biggest bane.

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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.
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.

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