Ian Lynam has art directed and designed a new vegan cookbook by Joshua Ploeg called In Search of the Lost Taste, which he describes as “half-recipes/half-adventure/sci-fi/fantasy novella with cover illustration by comic maestro Aaron Renier and interior illustrations by the mighty overlord Nate Beaty.” Ian has a bunch of copies available for 1,200 yen postpaid if you email him.
May 19, 2009
Couldn’t make it to this past weekend’s Design Festa (Vol. 29)? Tokyomade‘s Masao posts a Flickr photoset.
May 19, 2009
Tokyo-based journalist — and former PingMag colleague — Kevin Mcgue is working on a feature-length documentary about Japan’s live house scene called, appropriately enough, Live House. The project is set to come out this fall, and it was recently awarded a Japan Foundation grant.
May 19, 2009
John “Yongfook” Cockle’s latest web app, Peashoot, has now launched to the public. Looks rather nice — it’s a system to keep track of online social media compaigns.
May 19, 2009
Yes, PauseTalk has indeed been growing, as seen with the attendance at the March and May editions, and so after having a talk with Cafe Pause‘s manager last night, we’ve decided that for the next edition (Vol. 32 on June 1, from 20:00) the cafe will be exclusively used for PauseTalk. This should mean seating for everyone, and also a slightly different layout, to try and make sure that everyone can be included in the discussions.
As always, I do appreciate getting an idea of how many people to expect, so feel free to email me if you plan on coming, or just indicate if you are coming or not when I send out the monthly reminders through Facebook — you’ll find the PauseTalk group here.
Update: I think some people are getting the impression that the larger attendance is a problem — or rather that I have a problem with it — but on the contrary, I’m fully embracing the growth in interest, and just want to make it more comfortable for everyone. The larger crowds also create a nice “after lounge” once the official session is over.
May 18, 2009
From the Néojaponisme Twitter feed:
Comme des Garçons launching a new cheaper brand called BLACK in Shibuya Parco on June 5.
May 18, 2009
The game every Wii owner has been waiting for: Muscle March, out May 26 as a WiiWare title. Via Offworld.
May 17, 2009
My weekly Tokyo post is up at MoCo Loco, this time covering Alexander Gelman’s Lohas Design Award nomination, Naoto Fukasawa for B&B Italia, Nosigner‘s “The Rose Nebuta,” and Yukio Hashimoto’s Moonbird.
May 14, 2009
May 13, 2009
Andrew just brought to my attention Goliga Books, an independent Tokyo-based editorial firm that creates books about photography, art, and design for various publishers, and run by Ivan Vartanian, a former New Yorker. I see its behind Tiffany Godoy’s Style Deficit Disorder, a Harajuku fashion primer I quite enjoyed — Néojaponisme was a bit more critical.
May 13, 2009
Fashion designer Kosuke Tsumura — here’s an interview with him from PingMag — presented his “Mother Piece” (pictured above) at the “Tokyo Fiber 09 Senseware” exhibition in Milan. Each “garment” is composed of interlocking pieces made of a soft material called felibendy. Via Designboom.
May 13, 2009
Graphic designer Kiyoshi Awazu passed away late last month — he was 80 — and Designboom features a few of his classic works.
Update: Néojaponisme also shares a gallery of works by Awazu.
May 13, 2009
Takayuki Fukatsu’s TiltShift Generator app is now out. You can either use it online from this page, or download an Adobe AIR version.
May 13, 2009
Another huge crowd for PauseTalk this month, but one that felt like it was meant to happen: 31 participants for Vol. 31. So like the March edition we ended up with a back row, and a few others standing up. I think we still managed to keep everyone involved, and I especially thank those who contributed to the discussions. The Fujifilm Instax — nope, it ain’t Polaroid — photo of me and Paul comes courtesy of Tim.
Below, a partial list of participants — if you’re not there, please let me know. The next PauseTalk will be held June 1.
May 12, 2009
The piece about rakugo featuring Craig that appeared in the June ’09 issue of Esquire Japan is now online on Yahoo Japan’s X Brand site (Japanese-only).
May 12, 2009
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 happens June 4.
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.
