20X20
Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein made the cover of Axis Magazine this month. Mark is rocking the shirt I designed for PechaKucha Night: A Celebration. Lookin’ good!
Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein made the cover of Axis Magazine this month. Mark is rocking the shirt I designed for PechaKucha Night: A Celebration. Lookin’ good!
A comprehensive review of my now sold out book by Ricardo Cordoba is up on Speak Up.
It’s a nice, solid piece of criticism.
My first line of skateboards designed for Lesque, Tokyo’s hottest young skate company, is back from the plant. They may be available at your local skateshop if the Lesque boys don’t sell out on tour. Their “Couch Surfing” tour is pretty much the highlight of skate demos and culture in Japan this summer. If you have even the most remote interest in skating, go check them out. Seriously.
Lesque is an interesting company in that they have eschewed the traditional Japanese business model of sucking up to a distributor for manufacturing/funding, choosing to handle management and manufacturing themselves in a similar style to D.I.Y. outfits like Dischord Records.
Recently, one of their two pros, Shinichi Ito, got fed up with the minimal support offered by his supplementary sponsors and told them to take a hike. The result was this video. He is currently on the lookout for new sponsors (though Elwood already snatched him for clothing).
I’ll be briefly introducing the team before their presentation at the next PechaKucha Night at SuperDeluxe on September 24.
Just finished a new music video for the one-off song “Day Ditty”, released by Craig Wedren (Shudder to Think) & E#Vax (Ratatat) for my imprint Mold Recordings.
Hot off the presses: I wrote an essay on the film “Beautiful Losers” for the latest issue of Idea.
There is also a glowing review of Néojaponisme contributor Ed Fella‘s recent exhibition in Australia by Dylan Rainforth, as well.
Just finished a video for Strategy’s song “Lower Macleay” off of his brand spanking new Audio Dregs album, “Music for Lamping”.
While I was in Berlin and Paris, PingMag published a version of an article that I wrote about Kinya and Kao Hanada, a.k.a. Mumbreeze. If you have a chance, hit up Nagi Shokudo in Shibuya to see their current show.
If you have vegan homies visiting Tokyo, Nagi is my pick for the absolute best vegan food in Tokyo. It is also the cheapest and made by the raddest people.
While I am no longer a vegetarian, I tend to eat veggie around half of the time. I watched my previous fave veg restaurant, Ecru in Tama-Plaza, go under due to lack of patronage. I sincerely hope that this doesn’t happen with Nagi. They are in Shibuya, so it’s doubtful that rent is that cheap. Go there. Eat something. They do massive lunch and dinner specials where you will be stuffed to the gills for under ¥1000. And it’s DELICIOUS! They have an awesome drink menu and an English/Japanese zine library, to boot.
They also have an amazing shop section where you can buy books on off-kilter cultural topics like the history of elevators in Japan, zines from all over the world, and some of the best music coming out of the Japanese indie pop scene today.
A short video I made for GOOD Magazine is part of the Media That Matters Film Festival, playing globally at present through web streaming, events at museums, and at dedicated theater events. It’s the only animated Festival film, which seems surprising. (It’s not a fully animated video, as there is some footage in there, as well.)
Just had a new mini-notebook design released from the Tenth & Grant line of paper goods. It’s a 32-page lined notebook with rounded corners and a fluorescent pattern inspired by Japanese Modern 50s graphics on the cover. See/order here. 100% recycled paper and printed with soy inks.
TOKYO.TEN : EXHIBITION
2008 06.27 / FRI – 07.27 / SUN
GALLERY & SHOP “DO”
OPENING 06.27 / FRI / 7pm – 11pm
CLOSING + LIVE AFTER PARTY 07.24 / THU / 12am – 4am
URL : claska.com
Ian and David have work featured in the new Wieden + Kennedy Tokyo book and exhibition: Tokyo.Ten.
This event is the W+K team’s first exhibition in Tokyo. It will showcase a visual remix of the 9 WKTLAB hybrid CD/DVD releases and feature the 42 artists who participated in the TEN project. It will also world premiere the latest WKTokyoLab music video for Jemapur’s Maledict Car, directed by Kosai Sekine.
The show is a pretty star-studded lineup of visual creators who work in Tokyo. The participating artists are:
01 ERICA DORN : JAPAN / UK
02 TAKAGI MASAKATSU : JAPAN
03 CHRISTOPHER HUTCHINSON : USA / JAPAN
04 KUSTAA SAKSI : FINLAND / NETHERLANDS
05 KENTARO KOBUKE : JAPAN / UK
06 ELECROTNIK : JAPAN
07 FIEL VALDEZ + Peter Vattanatham : UNITED STATES
08 EDWIN USHIRO : JAPAN / USA
09 SHANE LESTER : USA / JAPAN
10 FREK / OUTSIGN LAB : HONG KONG
11 IAN LYNAM : USA / JAPAN
12 PHUNK STUDIO : SINGAPORE
13 KAZUFUMI KIMURA / VJ GEC : JAPAN
14 EARL BURNLEY JR. a.k.a. JUS REP : UNITED STATES
15 FIEL VALDEZ + Peter Vattanatham : UNITED STATES
16 ZONGY : BELGIUM / USA / JAPAN
17 FURI FURI COMPANY : JAPAN
18 PAUL HWANG / NANOSPORE : UNITED STATES
19 DRISCOLL REID : USA / JAPAN
20 AGENCY COLLECTIVE : UNITED STATES
21 LUIS SANCHIS : SPAIN / USA
22 TOSHIKO KIMURA : JAPAN
23 WOOG : HONG KONG / USA / JAPAN
24 KAMIKAZEDOUGA : JAPAN
25 MOTOKO : JAPAN
26 BURACO DE BALA : BRAZIL
27 TORU NAGAHAMA : JAPAN / UK
28 GENKI ITO JAPAN
29 ALEKSANDRA DOMANOVIć : SLOVENIJA / GERMANY
30 MAREK OKON : CANADA / JAPAN
31 TADAOMI SHIBUYA : JAPAN
32 MAHARO : JAPAN
33 KAMI : JAPAN
34 SASU: JAPAN
35 TATSUYA YAMADA : JAPAN
36 SUN AN : USA / KOREA
37 TADAHIRO GUNJI : JAPAN
38 SEONGHYUN KIM : SOUTH KOREA
39 THE_GROOP : UNITED STATES
40 SOLOBONGNU-SENSEI : JAPAN
41 KOSAI SEKINE : JAPAN
42 +CRUZ : PHILIPPINES / USA / JAPAN
The exhibition is in celebration of W+K’s new book and dvd release. This is a project set up so that W+K Tokyo LAB, in collaboration with all the artists with can express a range of “POINTS” (“点(TEN)” in Japanese) relating to Tokyo. A point is a moment in time, a dot, a location, and a reason for doing something. What’s the “point” or mark that makes Tokyo different? A point of view, a physical location, a point or moment in time. What do you think of when you think of “Tokyo”? What makes Tokyo special?
DVD (total recording time 70 minutes)
The greatest hits of W+K Tokyo Lab’s artists, including Hifana, Afra, Jemapur, and Takagi Masakatsu.
Come party it up and check out the work!
An Insight into Tokyo’s Art Milieu
Review of Chin Music Press’ Art Space Tokyo in the Daily Yomiuri where my essay is referred to as “particularly insightful.” Take that, nonbelievers!
MyFonts is now an official distributor of my type foundry, Wordshape’s typefaces. Stroll on by to pick up the now heavily discounted Cooper Black Swash Italic and/or Rubber Vloeren.
Cooper Black Swash Italic is a true digitization of Cooper Black’s swash characters which never made the jump from phototype to digital form. Most designers have settled for using the (IMHO) far inferior Goudy Heavyface swash characters in lieu of the more friendly Cooper O.G. action.
Rubber Vloeren is a digital adaption of Piet Zwart‘s lettering for old pre-linoleum rubber flooring advertisements. The same Rubber Vloeren alphabet was used by Zwart on several other occasions. There’s a showing in Dutch Type by Jan Middendorp of the most spectacular version: a gold-on-blue version on ceramic tiles made for the First Church of Christ Scientist in The Hague when working for the architect Berlage.
I am amped to announce a number of new eco-friendly paper goods I designed for the Tenth & Grant line of paper goods. A few new greeting cards are out, as well as a Moleskine-esque gridded sketchbook with a pattern inspired by Japanese Modern 50s graphics.
Details on the sketchbook:
A handsome dark green on light green web pattern spans the entire front and back cover of this chipboard notebook. Perfect bound with a handy hinge-score, and 144 interior white pages. 100% recycled paper! Printed with soy inks! Perfect bound with a handy hinge-score, and 144 interior white pages. Forest and Avocado – 5″x6.75″ – gridded interior.
See it here.
The fine folks at QOOB have commissioned myself and 9 others to create original new short films promoting Alfa Romeo’s new car, the Mi.To. These films are the kickoff to a large film-making contest and a larger ad campaign.
Audio Dregs head honcho and all-time homie numero uno E*Rock kicked down a smoking original track for the video.
Thanks, QOOB!