Over at the Chin Music Press blog, Craig Mod announces that he’s leaving the company to concentrate on “online projects and startups.” Here’s wishing him the best of luck with his new endeavors!

“Furin” was an installation by Toyo Ito and Takram Design Engineering that appeared last year at Okamura Design Space R. Designboom posts more details.

Tramnesia’s terrific “Working” series of short video reports on independent businesses continues with yet another Tokyo-related company — previously Knee High Media and Postalco — this time the Depot Cycle & Recycle bike shop in Ichikawa.

Photographer Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad has been taking photos in public spaces where everyone is doing something in common. He calls the project “Orderly Conduct,” and the photo above is part of the series he took in Tokyo.

Year after year, I tend to have a love-hate relationship with Uniqlo. I won’t get into it, but right now I’m in a love period, having picked up quite a few things in the past week or so.

First up is the latest “Designers Invitation Project” collaboration, this time with Opening Ceremony. I’m certainly glad I picked up everything I wanted — and it was a lot — last week when it was released, since it already seems to be mostly sold out (the best pieces and sizes) in most stores (at least the ones I’ve checked).

Next up, the latest collections of UT t-shirts, which includes the first phase of the game-related designs, as well as the “Creative Magazine Now!” collection, featuring designs by the following six magazines: Spectator (Tokyo), Tokion (New York), Grafik (London), Fairy Tale (Paris), Lodown (Berlin), and IdN (Hong Kong). I picked up a Tokion tee, an IdN one, and Grafik. For the game tees, I wanted Arkenoid and Galaxian, but they were already sold out of mediums when I was there the other day.

I may be obsessed with my iPhone, but there is still some cool stuff happening with “regular”‘ phones, and Ivan Poupyrev and Karl D.D. Willis‘ 12Pixels projects — created at Sony CSL — actually makes me wish I had one. The app lets you draw and share pixel-based images, all done through your phone’s touch pad. There’s much more info on the project’s official site, including videos — 12Pixels is also covered in the latest issue of New Scientist.

The project will be featured in the upcoming “Kansei x Tsukuba x Design” exhibition at Axis Gallery, March 27-31 — a reception will take place on the 28th (Saturday), as part of “Roppongi Art Night.”

Matt Alt breaks down the state of the anime industry in 2009.

I’ve seen it countless times on TV, but I still get a kick out of the latest Uniqlo CM — I especially like the bit with NOMOTO Karia singing Readymade style.

Want to participate in a flashmob? Details below on the one happening in Shinjuku this Sunday (March 22).

Nendo designs the above installation for Camper, at that “Bread and Butter” tradeshow in Barcelona. Designboom posts more images.

My weekly Tokyo post for MoCo Loco is up, this time covering Idea‘s Stand Cleaner, Metaphys‘ Locus 3way Pen (above), and Nendo‘s new collection for Arketipo.

Can you imagine living in 3m x 3m x 3m space? Jo Nagasaka (Schemata Architecture Office) makes it happen, with the conceptual Paco unit.

I definitely love seeing this: Matt Alt’s Yokai Attack, Arcade Mania, and Patrick Macias‘ Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno on display together at Kinokuniya in Shinjuku. Yes, good things do come in threes. Via Matt’s blog.

This past Friday night was the third edition of CGM, this time at Cafe Ratia in Harajuku — I’m sure Danny Choo will have a massive wrap-up post soon enough. I again showed up with my good friend CheapyD, and we proceeded to drink a lot of beer, talk to a lot of people, and have a general good time. The images of me found in this post were taken by Jim Grisanzio — I’m really impressed with his photos of the event, which you can view in this Flickr photoset. I was trying to get them to organize the next one at SuperDeluxe, but it seems like there were scheduling issues.

Update: Danny has now set up a dedicated CGM site.

First with the bad news: if you’re hearing about the “We Love Magazine Library” exhibition for the first time, then you’re out of luck because it ended yesterday. I must apologize for not having posted this before — I had actually taken note of it before its start, but completely forgot to post something. I did get a chance to check it out this past Friday night — it was held in the basement event space of Omotesando Hills — and I myself was quite upset that I didn’t go earlier, because I probably could have done with a few visits. As you can see from the photos, it quite literally was a library, but of the most amazing kind, filled with terrific independent magazines from around the world. Some of you may recognize the lighting as well — it was provided by my friend Kouichi (Kyouei).

I just really hope they do this again, because I unfortunately don’t get to read as many great international magazines as I’d like because I simply can’t afford them, especially when you factor in the usually quite hefty import cost. And yes, I so wish I could have attended this past weekend’s “Colophon 2009” in Luxembourg. As I twittered recently, I may have built a career on the web, but my true love remains print.