Category: Design

  • Mati Mati

    Mati Mati is a beautiful series of stationery that takes authentic map data from areas in Japan as a graphic base. The first collection covered Marunouchi, Kichijoji, Omotesando, and Fukuoka Tenjin, while the new collection includes Yokohama (pictured), Kyoto, Umeda, and Kobe. It was art directed by Yuruliku Design.

  • Kokoro & Moi & Escalator Records

    Back during the heights of the Shibuya-kei scene, Escalator Records was one of my favorite labels, and I loved visiting its shop and cafe as well. Kokoro & Moi were responsible for a lot of the label’s branding (including at their physical spaces), and it’s nice to see a few examples here. Now I really…

  • House Vision 2

    It’s too late to take in the “House Vision 2” exhibition (it ended this past Sunday) but you can still experience some of the highlights courtesy of this Japan Times piece, written by Mio Yamada, who was the last editor of my “On Design” column (and who continues to write it now). The exhibition offered a…

  • Canvas Tokyo Event Calendar

    I wrote something last year about Canvas — a community enclave for Tokyo-based creatives — and I’m happy to see that not only is the site still very active, but that it has now also launched an event calendar section.

  • Neo Tokyo 2020

    When it was announced that the Olympics were going to be held in Tokyo in 2020, it didn’t take long for references to Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira to pop up, considering that’s exactly what was predicted to happen in the series (published in the 80s). Here’s a beautiful graphic treatment by Javier González Delgado, inspired by…

  • That’s Entertainment!

    Ian Lynam is a Tokyo-based dude I love so much, and embarrassingly it’s just now that I’m catching up on the fantastic essay/exhibition he produced earlier this year called “That’s Entertainment!” Get some background through this TypeThursday interview, and then get online and read through the project’s main essay — and that’s also where you can download plenty…

  • Ryuto Miyake

    I quite like the work of Ryuto Miyake, which I came across through this post on the It’s Nice That blog. He’s got a great sense of design as well, and I love the scrolling page of illustrations on his personal site (click on “Illustration” at the top).

  • Street Typography

    Lately I’ve been really enjoying the “nodoca” and “typosanpo” accounts on Twitter, that share photos of signs — and their typographic messages — in Japan. I’ve also come across this page by Tokyo-based designer Dan Vaughan, where he’s doing the same thing. The photo in this post is from this tweet.

  • Airbnb’s Tokyo Office

    A new post on Designboom showcases the beautiful new Tokyo offices of Airbnb, produced with Suppose Design Office. Despite the news we hear of Airbnb having some legal issues in Japan — or even just not being welcomed by residents who dislike seeing their neighbors rent out their spaces — it seems like the company is…

  • Digging Through the Archives

    At long last, my archives are back. Most of them at least. Some of you may recall that back in early 2014, I had the great misfortune of the web host I was using pulling the rug from under me, which meant that my entire website — which dated back to 2002 — suddenly disappeared.…