Just a reminder that tonight (October 31, 18:00-20:00) is the first of two live sessions of Radio OK Fred at the Celine Omotesando store, part of Item Idem‘s installation for DesignTide. For this Halloween edition, we (me, Yoshi, Ay2, and Egaitsu Hiroshi) will have as guests Combo Piano, Yayako Uchida, and Umitaro Abe. Should be fun, so come one come all! The second session will happen this Friday (November 2, 18:00-20:00).
Oct 31, 2007
As in years past, PingMag posts a nice survival guide for Tokyo Design Week.
Oct 30, 2007
Micke (PMKFA) has updated his site with info and images on a few projects, including a live wall painting at a Uniqlo event, and the album covers for Kocky’s KINGDOME CAME and Lo-Fi-Fnk’s BOYLIFE.
Oct 29, 2007
Despite my cold and the surge of work, I’m still ready and rarin’ to go for this week’s Tokyo Design Week festivities, and I wanted to post something to update you on my activities during the week.
First, as you all know, we have the “Creative GBG” event happening at Cafe Pause in Ikebukuro, again in collaboration with Swedish Style. It starts tomorrow (October 29), runs until November 8, and I’d really suggest coming to the special edition PauseTalk on November 5 (from 20:00), which unlike regular editions, is open to one and all (not just participants). Expect more details on the various installations and participating creators to be posted here throughout the week.
Another event which I’m very excited to be a part of is a special live presentation of Radio OK Fred at the Celine Omotesando store, part of Item Idem’s installation for DesignTide. We (me, Yoshi, Ay2, and Egaitsu Hiroshi) will be doing two shows, on October 31 (Halloween special with Combo Piano, Yayako Uchida, and Umitaro Abe) and November 2 (Special Creativity Now! with David W. Marx, Antonin Gaultier aka Digiki, Marie from Colette, and PMKFA). The “shows” will happen from 18:00 to 20:00, with nice music, great talk, lots of unexpected happenings, and free drinks!
Also, as in past years, I’ll be covering the various design events, and taking lots of photos for MoCo Loco, so check there later this week for that coverage (and if you missed it, here’s my TDW preview from THE JAPAN TIMES). I also plan on posting a few TDW-related posts at Neojaponisme throughout the week.
Oct 28, 2007
TABlog posts another interview with the makers of the latest TAB t-shirt collection, this time with designer Tomoko Konoike.
Oct 27, 2007
PingMag interviews Naohiro Ukawa about his “A Series of Interpreted Catharsis episode 1 –Typhoon,” that appears as part of the current “Roppongi Crossing” exhibition at the Mori Art Museum.
Oct 27, 2007
Brian Ashcraft writes up comedian Shinya Arino and his popular videogame-related TV show GAME CENTER CX for the latest issue of WIRED. Wired.com also includes a look at the set.
Oct 27, 2007
You can read all of my Gridskipper posts here (or even subscribe to a feed).
Oct 27, 2007
For those who are wondering whey I didn’t post an anime season preview post this month, well, it’s because there’s pretty much nothing new in this latest TV season that I’ve been wanting to watch. Outside of the much-hyped new Gundam series — I’ve never been interested in Gundam, and so I don’t really see any reason to change that, unless it’s to see the original series that aired in the 70s, since my wife is quite obsessed with it — the only show that I’ve been wanting to check out is Production I.G‘s GHOST HOUND, which premiered last week on WOWOW, and is being advertised as a series to celebrate the studio’s 20th anniversary. It’s a collaboration with Shirow Masamune (GHOST IN THE SHELL), and is being directed by Ryutaro Nakamura (SERIAL EXPERIMENTS LAIN).
I just watched the first episode, and I’ll definitely say that I’m intrigued. As is the norm, you can’t really tell where everything is going from the first episode alone (I prefer not to read previews, because they tend to spoil too much), but I really like the way things are set up. We meet a young boy, who has flashbacks/dreams (somehow supernatural in nature) that finally suggest that something happened to him and his sister a few years ago — kidnapped, and I’m assuming the sister died. The most amazing thing about the series, and this is probably due in part to the fact that I was watching with headphones on, is the sound design. Half of the story, or rather the mood, is completely due to the sounds that sort of guide us through the boy’s dreams, or even his reality. Can’t wait to see where this is all heading.
Update
I forgot to add that I really like the opening theme song by Mayumi Kojima, “Poltergeist.”
Oct 27, 2007
As of yesterday, my MacBook Pro is sporting the nice new look of Leopard. Big thanks to my wife who stood in line at Tokyo University to pick up a copy — even though the Apple Store barely offers a school discount, at the university they were selling it for around 8000 yen, pretty much half price. Although I think Apple isn’t so popular in schools and businesses here, the University of Tokyo is a bit different, with lots of labs equipped with Macs, and so she said that at the student co-op there was a good number of people waiting in line, and then when it went on sale at 18:00, everyone started clapping!
Oct 27, 2007
Nice collection of photography covering Japanese police boxes (koban) by Adrien Missika and Louis-Cyprien Rials. Thanks, Micke!
Oct 27, 2007
Oct 26, 2007
Dezeen has posted some images for a few recent Klein Dytham Architecture (KDa) projects, including the R3 Ukishima (pictured above), the Wonder Room at Selfridges, the Sin Den, and the Virgin Clubhouse at Narita Airport.
Oct 26, 2007
URBANATICS is a new online shop that is being setup to let independent designers sell their products, and they are currently looking to add designers from Japan or Asia. If interested, visit the site or get in touch by mail.
Oct 25, 2007
For those wondering when those promised MUJI stores in NYC will finally open, it seems that the Broadway location (the one in the New York Times building) will open November 16, and then the midtown store sometime in January. A third store is also planned for next year.
Update
The Broadway location is in SOHO, and the midtown store will be in the New York Times building.
Oct 25, 2007
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 is March 5.
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.
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.
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.
He serves as editor-at-large at Néojaponisme, a web journal covering social and cultural aspects of Japan. Read the manifesto, by founder and chief editor W. David Marx.
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.
