About a month late on this, but pictured above, the winner of this year’s Graniph Design Award, designed by Tokyo-based Choi Hwang Ho. You can see the rest of the winners here — I have to say I prefer a lot of the runner-ups.

Tokyo Art Beat is carrying a new tee (not part of the regular TAB line) produced by designer duo Noto-Fusai. As the name “Utility Pole” implies, the design not only draws graphically from the theme, but also includes three cables that are stitched into the t-shirt. Utility Pole is just the latest in the duo’s “Shikisai” brand of black ink on white tees.

Paul Snowden has produced a rather nice tee for Minimal Tokyo as part of his “Wasted German Youth” series. Wish I could have attended Ivan‘s event last week at the Vitamin Water event space in Harajuku.

Graniph is doing another series of tees based on master typographers — the first was Emil Ruder — this time inspired by the works of Josef Muller-Brockmann. Dezeen is running a contest where you can win all six, with all of the designs on display.

From Assistant and Cyril “bovine mutilator” Duval (Item Idem), the Un/Built Store, a store concept entirely made up of shoe boxes — the store naturally disappears as shoes are sold. The project was featured in issue #926 of Domus.

The latest from Kouichi (Kyouei), a collection of 10 hand-made tees now on sale through Designboom’s online shop.

If you pick up this week’s issue of Metropolis (#798), those are two of the models you’ll find in the “Designers’ Tees” piece (link will expire at the end of this week). It was fun to do, and you’ll also find a bunch of my friends in the article. I’m wearing a tee from PMKFA‘s latest “It’s Our Thing” collection — funny enough, I just happen to be wearing that very tee right now.

Some great new tees from Meat Bun this week, or rather, new DX versions of their most popular designs. I really dig the four name model, now in classic Famicom colors (I have the original white on red).

Freitag will be launching a limited series of collaboration bags with some of the world’s top museums — “Freitag Limited Art Edition” — including the Mori Art Museum. Those bags will go on sale online and at the MAM on August 13. See this post at Dezeen for more details on the project.

Well, SET has done it again. If you thought the QR code it created for Louis Vuitton and Murakami was interesting, take a look at the new code it came up with for the MARC BY MARC JACOBS line here in Tokyo. The code was hand-drawn, and points to a new mobile site for the brand (viewable only on Japanese phones).

From the Néojaponisme Twitter feed:

Comme des Garçons launching a new cheaper brand called BLACK in Shibuya Parco on June 5.

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.

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.

Gozi has released info on her the new Autumn/Winter ’09 collection of her U.Mi-1 line, continuing her collaboration with Assistant‘s Megumi.

The AW 2009 UMi-1 collection continues the architectural story from SS and focuses on Lagos. The collection brings the exuberance of the 70′s into today’s architectural landscape. This season U.Mi-1 denims bring Nigeria to Tokyo and beyond, where a pair of pants comes with a matching shirt as a set. Gozi completes the story with another Megumi Matubara collaboration with the children from the Little Saints Orphanage (see News). Come, experience Lagos!

This post is going to be about something good, something better, and then the best.

First with the good. Everyone’s favorite Tokyo-based Swedish graphic designer Micke Thorsby (PMKFA) — well, mine at least — has recently launched a new collection of his “It’s Our Thing” brand of tees and sweatshirts. The new line introduces a brand new logo, which you can see above, and get as a t-shirt even.

Even better is that we also see the launch of an “It’s Our Thing” online store, where you can buy each piece in the line, with shipping worldwide (free shipping inside Japan). The store is also selling a few designs from older collections at a discount of 50% off.

What’s the best? Well, Micke was kind enough to offer readers of JeanSnow.net a discount on orders: enter “jeansnow” on checkout, and you’ll receive a 20% discount.