Shippo tail chair at the 2014 Tokyo Designers Week

photo courtesy The Verge

The annual Tokyo Designers Week kicked off over the weekend with various events continuing through this week. There’s always a ton of stuff going on and it’s easy to get lost in all of it, but here’s one thing that caught our eye. “Shippo” (literally, tail in Japanese) is precarious-looking chair that appears to be balancing on a long tail. The chair is actually incredibly stable and it’s a cool illusion that also makes for a whimsical product. It was designed by Martin & Ocean, who seem to be a Japanese design unit but I can’t find any information on them. If you know anything let us know in the comments!

Here are some other cool things that The Verge spotted. If you do attend the festivities make sure you check out the Hokusai manga inspired exhibition.

this post is part of a series of posts on the 2014 Tokyo Designers Week. You can find them all archived here.