Spoon & Tamago - japanese art, design and culture

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.

I loved this card created by Daigo Daikoku for Musabi (Musashino Arts University). Click here for detailed shot.

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.

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