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.

How’s this for a first post of 2010, a photo of myself! It’s actually for my “top 5″ that was just posted at MoCo Loco. My selections are taken from all of the “This Week from Tokyo” posts I did in 2009, and are (in no particular order): Jo Nagasaka’s PACO, the Reading Lamp, the Yamagiwa lamp collection, D-BROS’ Kudamemo, and Nosigner’s AWA line.

The winners of the Kokuyo Design Awards 2009 — a competition for stationery design — were just announced, with the grand prize going to Nao Asanuma’s “Roots” work table (above). Below, a few of the runners-ups. Via Spoon & Tamago.

Kazunari Kodama’s “Flower” tack.

Shohei Ono’s “Margins” notebook.

Satomi Tanabe’s “Plant & Ground” pen holder.

Kaneko Hisahide’s “Black and White Graduation” ruler.

Mixing digital culture with a bit of old-school stationery love, the Kaoiro stamp from Ginghami lets you stamp out all those kaomoji “faces” found in text/email correspondence in Japan.

Naoto Fukasawa developed the cuckoo clock seen above for a collaborative project between Isetan and the moreTrees forest conservation NPO — the clock is made of timber from over-planted forests. During Tokyo Design Week, Isetan Living hosted an exhibition that saw 50 artists and designers offer their take on the clock — you can see the clocks in this post over at Designboom.

Designboom posts a huge round-up of images and products from this year’s edition of DesignTide. Above, Hironao Tsuboi‘s “Sun” sensible time clock.

“Sun” is purposefully minimal except for a small colorful dot — a day begins with sunrise, it ends with sundown. Sunset and sunrise times are dependent on your exact latitude, and longitude coordinates.

Here’s a video of Yuki Yamamoto‘s Spica, a speaker that uses water and light to give you quite the show as you listen to your favorite tracks. It was on show at this year’s DesignTide, and I can confirm that it looked just as good in person as it does in the video. Via Designboom.

I’m very happy to note that the PROTOTYPE exhibition series — originally conceived by Keiji Ashizawa — is back this year for a third edition. “PROTOTYPE 03″ will be held at the Tokyo Midtown Design Hub, November 13-24, with the opening party — which you won’t want to miss, I know I won’t — happening November 12 (19:00-22:00).

An exhibition of prototype works from product designers, furniture designers, architects, and other creatives.This collection of prototypes and in-process design work illustrates the discovery, frustration and serendipity of the design process and highlights how prototypes are used as vehicles for solving problems and generating new ideas.

The list of participants is an absolute who’s who of the new generation bringing life to the current Japanese design scene — visit the exhibition’s official website for the full list, as well as info on what will be shown.

Isolution Unit teams with furniture manufacturer Karimoku for a new collection, to be previewed at next week’s 100% Design Tokyo (October 30 to November 3). More details and images over at Designboom.