A Creative Tokyo Canvas

Canvas gives a permanent and accessible digital database to Tokyo’s creative community.

It’s something that was often brought up at PauseTalk over the years, this idea of building a proper database for all of the interesting creatives who would attend the events, which would then make it easier for everyone to reconnect, or just to create a useful one-stop site for when you’re on the lookout for a designer, photographer, etc. I of course listed all attendees on the PauseTalk website, but that wasn’t very convenient in the long run, as you’d have to scroll down to old posts to see who attended a particular edition – and then there’s the fact that most of that site’s archive is now gone.

At one of the last PauseTalk events before I left Tokyo, there was talk by a lot of people of finally coming together to create a proper online database. I don’t know if Canvas is a result of that, but it’s certainly great to see it exist.

The person behind Canvas, Mark McFarlane, is a good friend and someone I’ve worked closely with (on PechaKucha-related projects) and so it’s really great to see him take his digital studio, Tacchi, and put it behind a project like this.

The site is currently still in beta, and so even though I already like a lot of what it has to offer, I’m sure it’s going to do nothing but improve, and see its community of creatives build and create beautiful things together.