Sculpting water

Stunning water photo-sculptures by New York-based Shinichi Maruyama, reported on Fastcodesign. High speed photography freezes a moment in thrown waterto dramatic effect. Plus a series of "Nihonga" creations also beautifully executed.

Japan/UK infographic

What with all the infographics everywhere one turns, I just thought I'd contribute one (very lightheartedly intended) infographic on the differences/similarities between the UK and Japan. I often hear that the UK and Japan have a lot in common or have similar traits because of their shared island-nation status, so taking that as a starting point I took 20 similarities/opposites and plotted them on a graphic.

Japan facts on the left, UK facts on the right. Nearer the centre of the circle, the more similar the facts, further out denotes an increasingly larger difference. If an entry appears toward the top of the circle it tends toward having a negative association, if on the horizontal through the middle of the circle it tends toward a neutral connotation, while if it appears toward the bottom there is a tendency for the entry to have a positive association.

What are the similarities and differences and are they positive or negative? As I said – not to be taken seriously. Click to enlarge.

Seeing a toasted Virgin

This entertaining posting proves that if you put each Vogue cover of the year on top of each other you get a strange blob that looks like… the Virgin Mary (or a random, angry blob). Very Christmassy. Above, the example from the site of all the Vogue Nippons. Vogue Paris seems particularly dark, and Vogue UK looks like the Virgin Lee Remick.

Year round-up

A blog called Spoon and Tamago by Johnny Strategy (catchline: art, somewhere in between New York and Tokyo) rounds up its most popular design posts of the year – including the shirt with built-in micro-fibre for cleaning your glasses, by designers FIFT (Katsunari and Ami Igarashi).

Tracking infographics

A friend got this CD by Kan, released this year. I thought it fun to notice that in the age of infographics, the design of the booklet includes various graphics for running times, number of musicians per track, beats per minute etc. Design by Store, Inc in Japan.

Rap image

Guess I won't be the only one linking to this. CMY Killa…

Autobiographical infographic

As he says, graphic designers make graphic other people's content. Nicholas Felton, however, makes graphic his whole life (in 15 minute increments)…

Guns drawn

An attendee of the Tokyo Anime Fair walks past a manga display at the Fair

The gloves are coming off. Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara supports his city-wide bill which aims to restrict certain, broadly categorised, "sexual" imagery in manga and anime which is accessible by minors. He presumably also supports (as he's executive committee chairman) the annual Tokyo International Anime Fair, a huge celebration and marketing of what anime has to offer, attended by fans, and both Japanese and foreign companies. Manga and anime are BIG business for Japan.

But reports – here in Variety – say that the Tokyo Anime Fair now faces an uncertain future as 10 major comics publishers have announced their withdrawal from the next Fair in protest at Tokyo's proposed bill. On the face of it, it all makes sense, but could it be that by taking too-broad an aim to hit at specific imagery has ended up with Tokyo shooting itself in the foot? Well, whether he's on the right foot or wrong-footed, we'll possibly know after tomorrow when the bill might well be passed.

See a previous post here. And some of the governor's responses, including on homosexuality, are mentioned here. Possibly targetting homosexuality, by the way, is not only of interest to gays, or, in terms of manga, not perhaps not even primarily of interest to gays – there is a big market in young male love stories written and read by young female audiences.

(Update 15 Dec: it was passed. 16 Dec: The Telegraph's foreign correspondent in Japan, Julian Ryall, reports. The issue does split opinions: In related comments I've seen Jake Adelstein, for example, seeing a positive attempt to limit child abuse, while manga translator Dan Kanemitsu tries to curtail some myths of Japanese manga, images of children and the bill he opposes here.)

(Update, 6 Feb 2011: Has a Seibu Deaprtment store exhibition become a victim of worry over the bill being enforced. It seems so, after it voluntary closes a show mid-run. Report by Catherine Makino here.)

Here's the rub…

Here's a curious and nicely eccentric piece of English/Japanese mixing up for the FIFA Club World Cup. The slogan/logo for the event here is "I [heart] Ku [heart]". The heart is "love", of course, which is pronounced literally by Japanese"ra-bu". So the slogan is "I rabu ku rabu" – or "I love club". It works in Japanese. Buy your goods here, for example.

Thinking and re-thinking

I visited the Issey Miyake exhibition Reality Lab at 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo Midtown over the weekend. It may be that Issey Miyake is "only" fashion, but there is an interesting aim to this show and the work: a mixture of design, recycling and ecological technology and craftsmanship. Using a company (Teijin) that makes polyester out of recycled clothes, plus traditional Japanese attention to detail in making things, and mixing origami techniques with up-to-the-minute construction, Miyake makes complicated folds in the design of the material which mean these clothes "remember" (to a certain extent) a folded-flat state and open into Miyake-style shapes for wearing.

He is the centre of the show, but he brings in commentary about the fragility of the world from scientists and technicians, and other works including curved folds in origami, and an interesting new look at the recycle logo from the Rebirth Project  – who broaden the logo out into small animationed "icons" that explore further the meaning of "recycle".

The poster shows one of Miyake's creations when folded flat.

Joking

Comedy Central – big in America – have "re-branded". And are promoting their re-branding. Some on the internet (as usual) are up in arms. Actually, the inverted comedy and the joke on the copyright symbol seem neat enough to me. And as you can see from the video, they can fit themselves alongside Facebook, Twitter and other simple icons. Below was the old logo.

via Fast Co Design

Face behind the mask

I don't usually post much about Japanese news, but perhaps the bar fight of kabuki superstar Ebizo Ichikawa XI is worth a mention, if only because it's a further slip of the mask that fronts certain ideas of Japanese-ness. (Sumo has had its share of unmasking recently, for example – earlier this year one whole tournament wasn't televised as punishment for illegal gambling and yakuza connections. And last month a sumo wrestler was video-taped driving a car, which, can you believe, is forbidden for sumo wrestlers.) Now Ebizo – a major star from a celerated kabuki family – has revealed a drunken and allegedly arrogant side which got him into a bar fight from which he was hospitalised with facial injuries.

So it's only worth a mention to point out that sometimes there's a certain lack of mystery behind certain cultural approaches seen as mysterious: kabuki actors can, we now know, be as drunk and apparently unpleasant as any actor outside of Japan who doesn't abide by an imagined behavioural code.

As Japan slips behind China economically, as the English-language expands (outside of Japan), as the economy stagnates, some currently wonder whether Japan wants to turn inwards again. Yet perhaps there's no unique comfort to be truly found in doing that.

Plotting the changes

Someone should do an infographic on the rise of infographics. Nevertheless, here's a good, simple and revealing one from the BBC.

via mestudio

What do we put on the cover?

Neat grouping (on nascapas mag lovers' blog) showing how magazines with different audiences have (succumbed to Hollywood PR and…?) designed Tron covers.

UPO Land

UPO Land sign in German Village, Chiba, Japan

Cellular living

I like this elegant design for a Buddhist monk's cell by Thai architect Suriya Umpansiriratana. Temples etc have an established history, and updating that into something also attractive, functional and symbolic is quite an achievement. (Although replacing cement board with wood would make it even greater!) Its circular design allows for continuous walking meditation and can represent the 24-hour or life cycle.

A face in the crowd

A favourite subject for photographers gathered into a collection by photographer Michael Wolf – in a book called Tokyo Compression. Reviewed in The Guardian by Justin McCurry.

There always seems to be two Tokyos, one where the imagined/real images hold true and one where they don't. Like Justin in his review, I very rarely experience the crowded trains these days – like most people I know I don't work in an office and don't commute, so this life of the "salaryman" and "office lady" is alien to me now. But for three years when I first came to Japan I did commute to an office, and my local station was one that featured the white-gloved assistants to push you on the train. Luckily I was only one express stop from Shibuya, so the trip was short. But such assistants are on my out-of-town local station in rush hour even now – luckily I have only had to use a rush-hour morning train on about 3 occasions in the past four years.

I did once see a woman faint on a crowded train, and remain standing up (there was nowhere to fall) until the next stop where people gently helped her out to lie on the platform.

A friend commented while on a (non-crowded) train, that the people asleep – heads lolling, mouths open, unguarded – were allowing themselves to be seen as even friends don't usually see them. As though making their own private space where strangers can see them in a way that closer friends don't. Of course, now those private moments are recorded in this book: that's perhaps what makes the images more interesting than just photos of the crush. Whether what the photographer saw and what the private thoughts were is a match we'll never know.

Celebrating print

Good idea which is being used for the UK 2-pound coin by Design Studio in London. It's to celebrate 400 years since the printed King James Bible, and to celebrate/commemorate print itself by embossing the opening words of the Bible in reverse (as though set text) and indenting them alongside (as though printed). Very nice. (It's funny how God and money go together – eg, "In God We Trust" on US currency – but that's another story. This is a celebration of print, not a joining of religion and the root of all evil!)

via mestudio

Black hair

New packaging for a "black melon-bread" snack. (Melon bread is usually bread-coloured or with a tinge of green - it is just a bread snack with a sweet, slightly melon-flavoured coating. This version has a black coating and chocolate cream at its centre.)

Some Japanese hair can easily become "afro" – and this package features a Japanese manga character called Afro Tanaka. Inventive, in this case, packaging and snack design.

(But the "afro" name obviously refers to its roots with African hair. So, just in a semi-related side-note: in popular culture here, other cartoony references to black people – such as "blacking up" for a comedy sketch – aren't always treated as they would be in the West, which of course has its own history of racism to overcome. Possibly because all foreigners can be fair game for such lampooning in Japan: see your party false nose here!)