Category — Graphic Design

When the freakishly talented multi-instrument-playing Shugo Tokumaru is not making cheery, whimsical music, he finds other things to do. Like creating these great and somewhat nonsensical illustrations, which have been turned into iPhone cases (2,940 yen). WANT!

The inherent problem in designing Japanese fonts is the sheer quantity of characters – 50,000 compared to 26 for their latin counterpart – and the labor involved. This perhaps justifies why many Japanese fonts are so expensive. But there are a few free fonts out there. Below are a mix of Japan-influenced roman fonts and actual Japanese fonts.

If you’re interested in Japanese typography check out this great primer (Part I and Part II) by Chris Palmieri. Although it was published a while ago, the content is still wholly relevant.

Koushiki Typeface

A solid font that is free and comes with very few restrictions. It was designed by graphic designer Atsushi Kawakami and was just released on Jan 5, 2012. And with an English interface downloading it couldn’t be easier.

Dot Colon Typefaces

An assortment of fonts by web designer Sora Sagano. Interface is in Japanese but if you click on the font you want and scroll down, the large blue button on the right is the download button.

Miura Liner Jr.

This is a cute handwriting font. Although the Miura font family is not free, Mop Studio has released a free version called Miura Liner Jr. The caveat is that it only contains 450 kanji characters (click for full list), enough for some basic writing but probably not enough for that dissertation you’re working on. The Japanese interface is a bit difficult to navigate so here are the download links for Mac and Windows.

M+ IPA

The M+ fonts are quite beautiful. They’re free and feature proportional and fixed-halfwidth Latin, as well as fixed-fullwidth Japanese. Here is the English interface when you can download from.

AXIS font

The AXIS font is not free. Actually it’s quite expensive (20,000 yen for a single weight) but it’s worth the investment if you’re going to be doing a lot of work in Japanese.

Source: W3Q

It’s become a tradition of some sort. Each year we share with you a selection of Japanese designer Holiday/New Year’s cards. Here is the 2012 edition.

Archives: 2011 New Year’s Cards | 2010 New Year’s Cards

Although we haven’t had much snow in New York, for Brooklyn-based designer Takeshi Miyakawa it was a white Christmas!

“A Happy New Year” from graphic designers NAM, in their signature style of distortion.

New Year on you iPhone. As he did last year, industrial designer Akihiro Kumagaya created “2012″ wallpaper for your iPhone using a few simple lines and the shapes of your apps. You can download it here.

Simply titled “BUILD,” design-duo SPREAD‘s New Year’s card is a minimal yet optimistic message for Japan’s future.

Dragon-themed cards

Industrial designer Masahiro Minami pays homage to the classic manga Dragonball.

Botanic artist Makoto Azuma created an abstract and exotic dragon-motif flower arrangement

Graphic designer Atsushi Kawakami uses a play on words to transform Hatsuhinode (the first sunrise of the year) to “Tatsuhinode,” incorporating both the dragon and the sunrise into his New Year’s card.

UK-based indistrial designer Tomoko Azumi showed off her prized stamp collection in her New Years card. Because the dragon is the only fictitious animal to appear in the 12 zodiac animals, the sea horse (tatsu no otoshigo; 竜の落とし子) is often used as a motif instead.

I love graphic designer Chikako Oguma‘s hand-drawn style.

And last but certainly not least, I couldn’t help including this adorable card from my friend and graphic designer Aaron Stewart.

I love this new illustrated comic series by Tatsuro Kiuchi (previously). Titled “The Earthling,” the serial comic strip has been running in the quarterly magazine Kangaeru Hito. The quirky comic strips at first seem to have an environmental slant to them, but others are just pure nonsensical. The cast of characters include an earth hugger, tea stalk, fairy of dust (aka “dust angel”), an invisible dog, and a human plant. Love it!

Kiuchi just recently created a website, making his entire series available for free in both Japanese and English. I think my favorites are Fur Coat, Chance Encounter and Pop-in Book. (below is Way Back, another one of my favorites)

It’s 2012 and that means the biannual CS Design Design Awards are back for their… 30th year! They’re accepting applications now so I won’t be posting about results until later this year. If you’re interested, you can read about the 2010 awards.

But today I wanted to focus on a different aspect of the event: the posters. Except for the first 4 years, the CS Design Award posters have been illustrated by legendary graphic designer Kazumasa Nagai. Currently in his 80s, Nagai is responsible for such iconic corporate logos as (click to view) Japan Railways, Nissin, Mitsubishi UFJ and the now notorious TEPCO (which is unfortunate, to say the least, but that’s a different story).

When it came to poster design, Nagai had a penchant for using animals and patterns to create unique, timeless and visually dynamic imagery. Take a look at the posters he did for the CS Design Awards, including the latest for 2012. It’s fascinating to see how they started off dark and exotic – some are almost sinister – and progressed to what can currently be described as minimal and cute. If you like Nagai’s work there’s a great collection of posters over on Pink Tentacle.

5th 1998

all images courtesy CS Design Awards

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I’ve been looking around for business cards and this one certainly struck a chord with me.  Graphic designer Ken Miki created this 3D business card based on his precise coordinates on planet earth: latitude 34° 41’ 23” and longitude 135° 30’ 44”. The card starts off as a 2D piece of paper but then easily folds together to become a 3D cubic model of the world. It’s a subtle way of kicking off the conversation. Nice!

click to enlarge

Source: Ken Miki’s website

photos by matsubacyoku | click to enlarge

What a great campaign for rice, the quintessential staple of the Japanese diet. With over a 100-year history, the Tokyo-based rice merchant Sumidaya recently underwent a major facelift with art direction courtesy of Eding:Post. The minimal design manages to capture the essence of rice, a symbol of purity, that also plays a major (yet subdued) role on the dining table.

One important characteristic of Sumidaya rice is that each year, depending on the type of crop that is produced, a specific blend is created that best emphasizes the distinct tones of the rice that was harvested. The new rice goes on sale March 2012.

Just looking at these images makes me hungry! Check out our other stories on Eding:Post

Source: Eding:Post

How adorable are these Zoo Tote bags designed by art director Kenjiro Sano (aka Mr Design). They were part of a massive charity tote bag exhibition hosted at Creation Gallery G8 in which 180 designers created original tote bags. Not only were the bags made by artisans in Tohoku, but all proceeds go to earthquake and tsunami relief. You can see all the 180 designs right here.

I also adore this camera tote bag by Moe Furuya

Photos: Satoshi Asakawa courtesy Hermes Japon | click to enlarge

The talented folks at Delaware-based House Industries have worked their magic on the Maison Hermes Tokyo storefront, (type) setting an alphabetic equestrian in the display window.

Sired from custom cut solid Wisconsin cedar and equitationally interlocking House Industries letterforms, our hand-drawn Hermès horse gracefully canters through a harlequin carousel of letter-borne livery with exceptional alphabetic dressage. Stoutly-sculptured cedar characters draped with signature Hermès stablemates carry on our motif throughout twelve animated window installations.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. It’s on display through Jan 17, 2012.

Check out the window display from earlier this year when Paramodel transformed it into a utilitarian workshop.

Source: @aqworks | House Industries
(I shamelessly ripped off the title for this post from them too)

images courtesy mondo | click to enlarge

What a fantastic My Neighbor Totoro poster designed by illustrator Olly Moss. The print is a special collaboration between Mondo — the limited-edition art print arm of the Alamo Drafthouse theater chain in Austin, Tex. — and the iconic Studio Ghibli, who gave birth to some of my (and my kids!) absolute favorite films. The tie-up is part of a Studio Ghibli retrospective that being held at IFC Center in New York through Jan 12, 2012. And the print goes on sale Friday. ($50 – $90) Follow @MondoNews for exact sale time.

They’re promising the next print in the series will be Porco Rosso! Can’t wait.

source: Mondo | @jeansnow