If you regularly check the participants list of PauseTalk events, then you’ve probably spotted the name Niko Lanzuisi quite a few times. A regular at the events, he’s a very talented filmmaker, and he’s been working on a few different video projects over the past year, and the latest is called TOKYO X CREATIVES. The idea is to create a series of shorts, with each focusing on one Tokyo creative — I’ll humbly add that I will be one of the initial six interviewees. Included in this post are the two first video teasers, and there are four more to come. Niko is actually trying to shop these around, to get some funding to continue doing them, so if you like what you see help spread the word (or if you’re a production company or publisher, get in touch with Niko).

The trailer above is for the interview with UAMOU creator Ayako Takagi, and the one below features chiptune artist OMODAKA performing at last month’s FAMIMODE event — you’ll find more details on each of the video’s Vimeo pages.

I forgot to post it last week when it was published — blame the nasty flu virus that has gotten me down for the past week — but the January edition of my “On Design” column was published on the 31st in The Japan Times, and you can read it online here. Pictured above, Postalco‘s fantastic new Snap Pad (and until February 16, you can catch Postalco’s “Wheel Printer” exhibition at the Creation Gallery G8 in Ginza).

My “On Design” column is a week early this month, appearing in today’s edition (Tuesday, November 22) of The Japan Times — or you can read it online here. Pictured above, 15%‘s Ice-Cream Spoons.

Let me point you to a new post on The Magaziner that helps explain why you should go and support this Kickstarter campaign to help finance a fourth issue of Letter to Jane on iPad. Tim’s a friend of mine, and he’s been doing some amazing work in terms of editorial publishing on iPad — first with his independent magazine called Letter to Jane, and then by collaborating on the third issue of Port magazine. I really want to see this fourth issue happen, so please consider chipping in a few shekels — and for $200, he’ll even give you the source code.

This month’s edition of my “On Design” column is in today’s The Japan Times, and can be read online here. Above, Branch’s Paper Chopstick Rest.

This month’s edition of my “On Design” column was in today’s The Japan Times, and you can read it online here. Above, one of the items covered, the Notchless tape dispenser designed by Mamoru Yasukuni.

You’d figure I’d be better at pimping my stuff on the web, but it feels like it’s been ages since I last linked to my regular “On Design” column on The Japan Times. But yes, it continues to appear on the last Tuesday of every month, and this month marks the 6th anniversary! The first edition was published in September of 2005, and you can still read it online (and here’s a post about it).

While I’m at it, here’s a link to last month’s column, in which I covered among other things Mile‘s Milestone, pictured above. This month’s edition will appear in the September 27 issue of the paper.

Just before I went to the TOO MUCH magazine launch party, I stopped by my friend Spikey’s new studio in Daikanyama. Spikey (or Shin Takahashi) worked at Klein Dytham architecture for 7 years, and just a few months ago left the company to start his own thing, in the guises of Special Normal. He’s an amazing interior designer, and I got to hear about some upcoming projects which all sounded fantastic. Loved his studio space as well, which is what you’re seeing in this post.

Go and do something with them too — “just do it” (oops, that’s another company I think).

So tomorrow (Monday, May 9) will mark the 50th edition of PauseTalk, and to commemorate the event I’ve decided to prepare a few things, both pictured below. First up is a little booklet I quickly put together that talks about how PauseTalk started, what it’s about, and gives thanks to every single person (well, at least the ones who filled out the attendance sheet) who has attended at least one PauseTalk (277). I’m going to print out and staple a few copies for the event, but I invite everyone to download the PDF version.

I’ve also made a few badges for the event, using the “PauseTalk 50″ logo, but these are very limited (only 15), and I will hand them out to the first people who arrive.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve attended one before or if this would be your first one, come join us tomorrow for a bit of talking. It all happens at Cafe Pause in Ikebukuro with an official start time of 20:00, although I’ll be there from around 19:30.

If you’ve been to the front page of this site sometime this week (I have to assume that many of you reading this in your feed reader), then more than likely you’ve noticed the giant banner I have there now. It’s for the big Global PechaKucha Day – Inspire Japan event I’ve been working on over the past few weeks, set to happen this Saturday (April 16). I alluded to it in a recent post, but if you don’t know about it, it’s a big charity event we’ve put together, bringing together the PechaKucha community — we’re 404 cities strong, as of this writing — for a day/night of events all over the world, with the goal of raising funds for reconstruction efforts in Japan. As with last year for Haiti, we’re teaming up with Architecture for Humanity.

The core of the event is on Saturday, with a whole bunch of cities holding PKNs, and a lot of them will be streaming live as well — just go to the Inspire Japan site on the day of the event, and whatever is currently streaming live should be up at the top of the site. But our Inspire Japan efforts will also span all of April and May, and we’re inviting organizers of all PKNs during this period to collect donations — because this all came together so suddenly, many cities were not able to re-schedule already planned events, and some just found it difficult to organize something on the 16th.

Here in Tokyo, instead of our regular home of SuperDeluxe, the event will be held at the Roppongi Hills Tokyo City View (52nd floor), with doors opening at 17:00, and presentations starting at 18:00 (it should run until around 21:30 or so). Entry will be a minimum donation of 1000 yen — you’re of course welcome to leave more. To access the event, you’ll need to go to the 3rd floor to get a free ticket to get to the top, and we’ll have signs there to point you to the event space (where you’ll pay the entry fee).

This will also be the first time I present in quite a while — I only presented once at a PechaKucha Night, 3-4 years ago at a special Tokyo Design Week edition with my friend Jesper (it was about the Swedish Style event we had organized at Cafe Pause). This time, I’ll be teaming with Ian, who is responsible for all of the Inspire Japan graphics you’ve been seeing. The presentation will pretty much be about design efforts to raise money for Japan aid, based on that post I started a few days after the quake, as well as the follow-up I did in last month’s edition of my “On Design” column for The Japan Times. For his part of the presentation, Ian will cover the projects he worked on to help raise awareness and collect donations.

The event should be amazing — I mean, you can’t really beat that view — and you’ll also be contributing to reconstruction efforts, so I urge you all to come and support us. Also, if you’d like to help spread the word, feel free to get and use Inspire Japan banners and ads that Ian created, as well as a very cool (and workable) QR code that SET Japan designed for us.

I mentioned in my charity post that OPEN Skateboards were donating proceeds of all deck sales to disaster relief, and now Ian has gone and designed a new deck (above) specifically to help raise funds — you can pre-order it now (sorry, they couldn’t get an official release date on it yet). 

The image on the left is the bottom, and the one on the right (the top) will be red paint on black stained wood.

The seventh issue of Steven Gregor’s excellent Gym Class Magazine is about to come out, and I’m very happy to have contributed to it in the form of a short interview with composer Shigeru Umebayashi (In the Mood for Love, House of Flying Daggers, A Single Man).

The cover feature is an interview with legendary Esquire cover art director George Lois by Andrew Losowsky (Magtastic Blogsplosion), and GCM 7′s cover — an homage/wink at a classic Esquire cover — was also Andrew’s idea.

I haven’t mentioned it in a while, but I do still contribute a monthly design column to The Japan Times newspaper. It’s called “On Design” and it is composed of five products I pick/recommend, and it is always published on the last Thursday of the month, which means that this month’s edition was in today’s paper (and it’s online here). This month I start out with a bit on Tokyo Design Week, and then I recommend Kyouei Design‘s Cube Letter Set, &design‘s Bird Alarm Clock, Shin Azumi‘s AP Stool, and the.‘s Speak-er.