The latest issue of PLANTED (6) focuses on love and romance, with a articles on scents and arrangements. The seed insert is a pansy.
DESIGN NOTE (16) covers “Fashion & Graphic Design,” with a look at art directors working with fashion brands, stores, catalogs, and magazines. The issue starts off with a look at Kenya Hara and his “Senseware” exhibition and book, as well as the Taku Satoh-curated “Water” exhibition at 21_21 Design Sight.
STUDIO VOICE (385) takes us on a tour of the “Creators of 2008″ to watch. It’s quite an eclectic bunch covering a wide range of fields, but be aware that the text-heavy profiles mean that it’s not the best of issues to pick up if you’re only looking for visual inspiration.
AXIS (131) features Marti Guixe on its cover, with the issue’s main report covering “Where concepts for the future are born — a look at car designers.”
I had a chance to leaf through the latest issue of MAC POWER since the relaunch (as mentioned here), and as I feared, it’s turned into a regular Mac magazine, with the typical tech focus.
A few reasons why you might want to pick up the latest issue of KATEIGAHO INTERNATIONAL (Vol. 18): media artist Alexander Gelman talking with a sword maker, a piece on anime that includes profiles of Studio 4C, Satoshi Kon, and Mamoru Hosoda (director of THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME), and a guide to Tokyo’s club scene.
I’d never heard of Reiko Shimizu’s philosophical sci-fi manga series HIMITSU – TOP SECRET (or any of her other works, like MOON CHILD and KAGUYA HIME), but the news that it’s being turned into an anime series for the spring 2007 season sounds good to me, especially after having read this description:
The story takes place five decades from now, when brain scanners have been perfected to the point that the government can retrieve up to five years’ worth of memories from people’s minds — even if they are dead. The investigators of the National Research Institute of Police Science’s 9th Forensics Laboratory must weigh the ethical choices in the ultimate invasion of privacy as they delve into people’s minds to solve crimes. (Anime News Network)
Core77 writes-up the works of interior designers Isamu Kenmochi and Isamu Noguchi, the fathers of “Japanese Modern,” and point us to the “Design: Isamu Noguchi and Isamu Kenmochi” show, currently running at the Noguchi Museum in New York.
CASA BRUTUS (94) takes us on a tour of “Hot Places to Visit 07/08,” with destination ideas both in and out of Japan. I always enjoy these, but wish they would put out some guides, like the WALLPAPER ones, that would compile all of these tips, because I’m not about to start taking notes on every city they cover, in case I get to one of them.
REAL DESIGN (20) has a terrific look at product package design. I also quite liked their “Super Market Goods Design” feature — I love seeing food package design from different countries.
BRUTUS (631) offers up another guide to books — how many of these do they publish every year?
TRIP (January 2008) is a new travel magazine — or mook — from the Brutus family, and one that seems to hit all the right notes. The oversized format is great, as well as the raw spine (nice aesthetic). It includes an insert with suggestions on 6 possible trips, and has a few summaries in English of some of the articles.
The new issue of TOKION JAPAN (66), with a feature on Jun Takahashi and UNDERCOVER, is the magazine’s final one. Seems like the magazines hasn’t been doing so well for a while now, so the end doesn’t come as a big surprise. The final page seems to suggest that they are only going away temporarily, but that could mean that only the possibility of a return is there.
You should also really be on the lookout for the latest issue of TITLE (96), which I write about here.
I was wondering what happened to MAC POWER, with no new issues for the past few months. I finally got around to checking their website, and it seems like they’re back with a new look and a new frequency (quarterly). I’ll reserve judgement until I leaf through the issue, but from the cover, it’s looking like they’ve unfortunately turned into a regular Mac magazine, instead of the culture magazine of old.
PingMag MAKE is the sister site to PingMag. We use an interview format to put the spotlight on a wide range of people active in rural areas. We document the voices of these unknown heroes and broadcast them to the world. It’s the Japan-based magazine about people and making things, coming out once a week. We’re passing on the passion, ideas, skills, and life stories of people who are building today and exploring tomorrow: craftsmen, engineers, entrepreneurs, and inventors. Stay tuned!
I haven’t been writing much about my cycling adventures of late, but I do go out pretty much every morning for a spin in the city. I recently picked up a Thermal Ride Jacket and Insulated Cycling Gloves from Mont-Bell, and so the cold weather isn’t at all an issue. I also wanted to pick up their Winter Cycling Pants — yes, I’ve crossed THAT line, I’m ready to wear cycling tights — but they were out of my size.
I don’t always go very far — a regular route is heading down Meiji dori to Kanda river, and then cycling along that for a bit — but it just feels good to be riding. A new accessory I got is a bell equipped with a compass, which I’m finding extremely useful. I have a horrible sense of direction, and I’m finding it really helps me get my bearings when I’m exploring a new area.
This morning after I got down to Kanda river, I decided I’d follow Shin-Mejiro dori and see if it would get me to Nakano (I did bring my TOKYO CITY ATLAS with me). It wasn’t the most direct of routes, but made for a nice ride. I followed Shin-Mejiro dori, and just about the time it turns into Mejiro dori, I headed west on Shin-Ome kaido, and then south-west on Nakano dori. Once I got to Nakano, I figured I’d go to Koenji — a place I haven’t been to in ages — and get a latte at Planet 3rd, which is where I’m at right now, writing this. To get back home, I’m thinking I’ll get back to Nakano and then follow Nakano-dori until I get to Waseda dori, which should bring me back to my starting point.
Ah, the joys of riding — I feel like starting a cycling club now!
This month’s edition of my “On Design” column is in today’s THE JAPAN TIMES, and can be read online here. In it, I cover the new MoMa Design Store, Kashiwa Sato’s collection of new year cards for Japan Post, the Arch cat toy by Collex, the Dyson/ISSEY MIYAKE “The Wind” collaboration, and Sharp‘s PLC adapters.
MAGAZINE PICK-UP ALERT: It didn’t take long before I bought a copy of the new issue of TITLE (96). With a cover sporting the words “2008: A Magazine Odyssey,” you just know I had to pick it up. It’s a terrific look at the world of magazines, with the feature claiming “No Magazine, No Life.” Amen, brother! There’s also a great bilingual insert, produced with MONOCLE (it’s almost as if the insert was pulled straight out of an issue of MONOCLE), that covers different aspects of the magazine’s inaugural year, including looks at some test covers and their HQ in London.
And yes, I know I haven’t done one of my “This Week in Magazines” posts in a while. I have been going through new magazines on a regular basis, and have even taken notes for those posts, but for some reason just didn’t get around to writing them of late. I’ll try to get one up this week with a look at the latest releases.
BUSINESS WEEK takes a look at the challenges Apple faces in bringing the iPhone to Japan. I still think that no current handset in Japan even comes close to matching the iPhone’s innovative, and user-friendly, interface. (Thanks, Max!)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
Jean Snow is a contributor to 
He will be contributing to the upcoming fifth editions of 
