Kyouei Design held an exhibition in Shizuoka this past weekend — showing off the new Mobile Light and Bulb Lantern (pictured above), as well as a few prototypes — and you can see a few photos from the show here.

Dezeen shows us a few photos of Atelier Tekuto‘s Twin Bricks House in Saitama.

Ian has started a new weekly feature on Neojaponisme, offering retro patterns based on Japanese graphics from the fifties for free download. The first set is what you see above.

The Hitotoki family of sites keep on growing, this time bringing us narratives from Bulgaria, more specifically the city of Sofia.

Danny Choo celebrates the launch of the iPhone 3G on Omotesando with another look at the lines, and a little dance. Hope he could get his hands on one, considering the lack of love SoftBank is showing foreigners in Japan.

Japan Probe has posted some disturbing news regarding the newly launched iPhone 3G in Japan. According to the terms on the Sofbank website: “If you have less than 15 months left on your visa, you wont be able to make a contract, but they’ll sell the phone to you without a plan forï¿¥80.000.”

What??? That’s absolutely ridiculous, and would mean that I can’t get one. Yes, my current 3-year visa expires next summer, as which point I will renew, like I’ve been doing for the past 8 years I’ve lived here. So this means you can only get a new phone when you’ve just renewed a visa?

Of course I can’t check for myself to see if they are really enforcing this rule, since I’ll only be back in Japan at the end of the month, but if this is true, then I am not going to be a happy camper.

UPDATE: Someone posted the following comment in the thread:

Max has taken some stunning photos of pieces from Chris Kirby‘s “Negative Series” exhibition, that was held last week at Cafe Pause. Check here to see more.

TABlog has posted an extensive photo gallery of the opening festivities for the new gallery complex in Ebisu, which is where you’ll find the newly re-opened Nadiff bookstore.

PingMag takes us on a creative tour of Hokkaido.

So much so that no only does he release a fresh new episode of Polypunk (32), titled “Polypunk Été,” but he’s got a new album too, the long awaited Dense Music. Head to this post for tons of info and samples, as well as links to online stores that sell it.

Designboom looks at some of the works from Kazushi Takahashi, a shipbuilder turned architect. You’ll want to check the PingMag interview, as well as a tour of his studio.

The iPhone 3G releases tomorrow, and of course it had to happen while I’m out of the country. Looks like it may have been hard to get my hands on one anyway, if the line of people waiting at SoftBank’s Omotesando store is anything to go by. Then again, maybe it’s for the best — hopefully I’ll get back to Tokyo and just walk into a store to get one.

• You’ll want to hit Ikebukuro for the 6th annual “Kappa Ten” (Kappa Exhibition) at the Artist Garden gallery (July 10-22). As Matt Alt describes it, “it’s a celebration of everyone’s favorite cucumber-eatin’, sumo-wrestlin’, anus-attackin’, water-dwellin’ yokai from Japanese folklore,” and will include artwork from more than twenty artists. Matt’s Yokai Attack! book will also be sold there. An opening reception takes place this Saturday (July 12), from 17:00 to 18:00.

Item Idem needs you help for an upcoming project. See the call to art above, or get in touch with them for more details.

The winners for this year’s Graniph Design Awards have been announced, with all designs now being sold at Graniph stores as well. The gold prize went to the design you see above, by Taiwan’s Cho Jo Tzu.

You may have noticed that I don’t post much about Graniph these days, and I think the award winners pretty much show why. For me, the past year has seen Graniph’s designs move in a less graphic, more illustrative style, which I don’t find myself particularly attracted to. I’m assuming that the change in direction is due to a desire to release the types of tees that sell.