Hitotoki Tokyo has launched in Japanese, after the successful launch of the English version. We have a few stories up there already so go have a look.
We will also open in New York in September and are currently looking for submissions.

I have published an article on how to make better presentations at Pecha-Kucha Night events. It is up on the AQ blog, where I work.

The 3rd collection of our TAB T-shirts has just been released in our new online store. 5 designers have donated graphics illustrating their love of Tokyo to help us promote the city as a lively and happening place, as well as support our Non-Profit Organization team (paid staff and volunteers). The Shop has been entirely redesigned and includes a new bilingual cart system, interfacing with Paypal.

AQ, the Tokyo-based little webdesign/print studio I work with has a fancy new website.
I am really pleased with its looks. Simple, not geeky and with cute little illustrations to accompany visitors.
We do Japanese & bilingual web design, localization, usability testing, graphic design and consulting.

Check some of our selected works, and bookmark our new blog.

Our new project has pre-launched:
Hitotoki.org.

The site is a little non-commercial project we put together in a few weeks as a joint effort between AQ (little design studio where I work) and Chin Music (Tokyo/Seattle-based publishers).

The site will attempt to record and broadcast short location-based narratives written by people that have visited Tokyo or live in the city.
The stories, like the title indicates (hitotoki in Japanese means a single moment), should capture those special moments one encounters when living in Tokyo where it just feels good/weird/tough to be here, and must be tied to a specific location in the city.
Hopefully, the memories emerging from the site will allow people to enjoy a more intimate and deeper view of the town, its people, and the authors profiled alongside the stories.

Updated: We have launched!! hitotoki.org

What a silly title... Almost sounds Engrish. (it's also a silly post! Yes!)

But I am trying to build a list of foreign designers/artists (notable ones...) married to Japanese nationals..
please help me!

Here are the ones I know:
Jonathan Barnbrook (Male - British nationality - living in the UK)
Alexander Gelman (M - US - JP)
Nicolas Gwenaël (M - FR - JP)
Büro Destruct's Lopetz (M - CH - CH)

Any more?

added:
Simon Taylor from Tomato (M - UK - JP/UK)

We, at AQ, have just released a redesigned website and corporate identity for Welkam, a small but smart company that directs, designs and builds booths and displays for exhibitions and events in Japan and worldwide.
Those 2 powerguys can do many things, in several languages and many countries. Our mission was to design a site that would reflect that in a clear and engaging way.
Let us know what you think!

The New York Times: Streets Are Paved With Neon's Glare, and City Calls a Halt (By Larry Rohter - Published: December 12, 2006)
SAO PAULO, Brazil - Imagine a modern metropolis with no outdoor advertising: no billboards, no flashing neon signs, no electronic panels with messages crawling along the bottom. Come the new year, this city of 11 million, overwhelmed by what the authorities call visual pollution, plans to press the "delete all" button and offer its residents an unimpeded view of their surroundings.

Updated We've again lowered the price of the fantastic 5 TAB shirts to 3000yen for 2 shirts until the end of August. This is the final sale. 2 DAYS LEFT!
Those shirts' designs were donated by five international artists/designers:
Jonathan Barnbrook, Power Graphixx, Paul Cox, Nobory Tsubaki, Buro Destruct to help make a bit of money to support the NPO behind TAB and its team.
This is our first line of shirts and we have about 30 shirts left.
and, we ship international!
Get them while they last!

Edward Tufte new book - Beautiful Evidence, is now at the printer and should be available in May 2006. On his site, you can order only that book, or all 4 of them in one convenient pack...
Guess what I just got meself...

Here, I updated my collection of cool Honda ads...

To allow me to keep on taking care of TAB and work on my next super secret project, I have decided to go back to freelancing.
I have therefore updated and relaunched the portfolio area of the site (Am I the only one on the planet using Flickr to show my portfolio?)
So if you love me, give me some work... print, web, usability/interface...
Get in contact.

I have no idea when and why this was done, but it looks really sweet. 27 different cars!!

[Design Observer] And as we sit squarely in a culture intoxicated by sampling and appropriation, can we expect no less from graphic design?

Yucks... No wonder I don't like being referred to as a graphic designer... No wonder I didn't go to the RCA. Here's one controversial article and here's one hell of a ride in the comments... Not to be missed!

Updated. The city has just become more exciting!
We built what we thought was most missing in our city of Tokyo: an Art and Design amplifier. We know there are hundreds of artists and venues broadcasting in the city, yet so few ways to hear about them.
Now there is Tokyo Art Beat.

[Maeda Studio] Until February 1, 2005, we are selling 100* large-format, unframed lithographs (728mm x 1030mm) to support relief efforts in Asia. All proceeds will go to Oxfam.

I had already given to Oxfam 2 weeks ago, but this was an opportunity that I couldn't miss. I just bought 4 of those. Hurry up while it lasts.

Seen on Cool Hunting last week is the Jimi, a plastic card case that is a little unconventional in its function and looks for people who don't like traditional wallets. The website is kinda overdone too but it was nice to see such an insignificant object get some functional attention. For my part, I bought a similar plastic card case in Amsterdam last April and have been using it happilly ever since.

2 weeks ago, I met James Clar in the elevator taking us to the Waist Down expo on the 6th floor of the Prada shop in Omotesando. He is a talented artist dealing with "Interactive Lighting Design and Retail Environments". I actually had no idea who he was until I found out he is the 3D-display-LED-cube guy! I know him from this MoCoLoCo entry 3 months ago. He has shown at the New Museum of Contemporary Arts and the Chelsea Art Museum amongst others. This year he won the Design Distinction Award from ID Magazine and also was recently selected to exhibit at the 8th Japan Media Arts Festival which will be held at the end of Feburary 05 at the Museum of Photography in Ebisu.
Right now he is in Japan to promote his work and an installation he did for Shift Magazine's Dot Mov Festival help in Sapporo.
He's just launched his new website, check it out.
And now Phillip Torrone wants to show us how he did it...

My good friend Gaku is quoted in this article on ResFest 2004 over at The Japan Times Online.

[NGf] Given the enormous number of innovative projects, many of which are unknown outside a narrow circle of researchers, the NGf has developed a tool to make educational innovation visible. The Map of Creativity contains hundreds of projects recommended to us by educators around the world. If you know of an innovative project to support creativity, learning, or play, you can follow the simple instructions to put it on the Map. To help other users, consider rating some of the projects you discover on the Map. The Map is only as good as you make it!

Dider Hilhorst and Marcos Weskamp are currently working on a project that links music and memory. At this point they are collecting data to populate the database that will be used for the visualization.
In a form they have put online, they ask you to mention a specific song that you relate to a memory. You can even sketch out your memory, among other things! It's great fun, really!

Sign this petition and save the French Imprimerie Nationale heritage.

I.D. Magazine | Winners of the Student Design Review '04

Who'd have thought that Japan Tobacco would one day launch a series of notices highlighting typical situations where a smoker bugs the hell out of me.
I find them quite witty. But the paranoids among us could definitely judge them as pure attacks on the drama queens that some non-smokers are.
I took pics of a few others here, here and here.
Nick's got a few there too.

A friend of mine took those pics a month ago in the 109 building in Shibuya (famous clothes shopping mall). The designer is Japanese (but apparently leaves in the US?). I don t know his name but this is awesome. Some kind of Modern Sexy Ninja light armour for the Asian Femme Fatale / Tomb Raider type.
Here's the deal: I am looking at finding out who the designer is.
If you're gonna be in Shibuya over the next few days, please go check it out. And try to get some more details on that. I'd love to see more of his creations.

Flash fananimation of Radiohead's creep. "Beautiful and dark".

Sony's "Viable future alternatives to the keyboard interface" Flash presentation includes work (Gummi and Block Jam) by two of my friends at Sony Japan.

Updated

[Pallalink] The perspective of “daily scenery”, which is corrected by the grid, has been transferred into another dimension by some simple geometric manipulations, such as repetition for axis, rotation for center…etc. Images, which are generated by those manipulations, contain a metaphor that is hidden description for various events; the spectrum of the lost boundary area. The invisible world is concealed under the all-too-common cityscape, where all the places are linked, that is to say, an entire universe.

A good overview of the work produced by my friend Kazuhiko Kawahara-san (alias Palla) is now online. Can't wait for the real book! The real book is here!! And I'm buying at least 5! Get them while they last... Only 50!

[DUNNY SHOW] Kidrobot is proud to present The Dunny Show, an exhibition which features the work of more than 50 important artists and designers with backgrounds in fine art, graffiti, industrial design, and illustration, in a unique exhibition of customized Dunny toys.

[(area)code] (area)code is an sms mapping system which reveals personal memories and the hidden histories behind 5 key sites in Manchester city centre. It is one of the first systems to use sms and the ubiquitous mobile phone to locate information in specific places. (area)code invites you to collect and reflect upon your immediate environment, and enables new forms of engagement and information exchange between person and place. Developed for Future Sonic (area)code aims to inspire comments about the affect of urban regeneration in the city. Manchester has been an important trade centre since the Industrial Revolution through to today’s manifestation as a retail and leisure boomtown. How do such changes affect our lives? Do we feel involved in the decision making process or do you find your life has to alter to fit these new urban spaces? [via]

Updated For Japanese contemporary art, take art collection aims to provide great artworks by Japanese contemporary artists, mainly introducing screenprints and photo works. In addition to being on an internet gallery, the art fair called "take art collection" takes place every year at Spiral Garden, 1st floor of Spiral building. At this art fair, various artworks by Yoko Ono, Yayoi Kusama, Tatsuo Miyajima and other young Japanese artists are being exhibited.

After a few weeks development, we are launching hypulp.com, a new design blog (edited with my good friend Paulus Dreibholz) documenting the influence of internet on print design. We want it to be a platform to record the ongoing cross-breeding and a vector to help designers devise new approaches to narratives.

Updated Typographic illustration. 6 beautifully type-faced illustrations. Unique.

...t.y.p.o.r.g.a.n.i.s.m... is a web-based project focused on interactive kinetic typography and communal interactivity in the web environment.

Back in March, I took a picture of the Roppongi Hills logo that Jonathan barnbrook designed, here are some more infos about the logo.

Young-Hae Chang make flash animations using simple type and soundtrack. The pace of the movie is determined by the dialogue that the type and the music have. The resulting animations can be beautifully poignant (like his latest Operation Nukorea), calm, sad, very confusing, too fast to read, overwhelming; many sensations conveyed by the talent of the creator orchestrating this dynamic.
I am unsure about the choice of the typeface and there may be room for improvement there. Obviously, typefaces have their own character and could add to the message but could also distract from it.
This reminded me of an idea I had a few years ago of type-animating a sequence of one of my favourite movies. Well, I'm closing in on the threshold.

Bubble Chamber] The Bubble Chamber is a generative painting system of imaginary colliding particles built with Processing. A single super-massive collision produces a discrete universe of four particle types. Particles draw their positions over time resulting in the construction of oddly familiar patterns.

MailMan is a very exciting and sweet short clip presented by the imgl department of Keio University. The music was done by Yasuhiro Tsuchiya (aka Unplug). Check out his other creations.

Updated

[k10k] John Weir pointed us to this ultra cool 'robotic spray painting machine' called Hektor, made by mysterious Jürg Lehni and Uli Franke.

Shelley Jackson is looking for 2095 people to each get a tattoo of a single word from her novel Skin.
To keep company to the tatoo i got on my right hand palm a few years ago, I eventually decided to take part in this piece of mortal art.
If you too want to participate, check her news.
Update (2003-11-14)= Shelley accepted me as part of her project, i am waiting for my word, should get it within the next 2 weeks.
Update (2004-02-03)= I received my word yesterday! --> over
I am quite happy with it, it could have been anything and people who decide that they don't like their word can opt out but can't apply again for a new one.
It's rather neutral and won't steal the focus of the questions I'll get for the rest of my life, I'll be able to talk about the art project behind it instead.
Next, I have to get it tatooed in a classic book font like Times New Roman, take a picture of it and send it to her. Only then will I receive a copy of the full story, which I am forbidden to share with other people(!). But she reserves the rights to publish about the project process and she even engages herself to attend the funerals of all her "words". This is taking on a slight Master/Slave connotation... ;-)
Anyway, I already know where I'll get it tatooed but won't tell you until it's done.
Olivier, will you take a nice portrait of me with it pretty please?
Now, can anyone recommend me a good tatoo artist in Tokyo?
More: great article in the Guardian, and a gallery of lettering tattoos with quite a few "words" already.

A few years ago, I was at the LCP working on an "experimental typography" project (yes! that's how it was called...) for my degree , and I needed to find the name of an accent; the little circle you find atop the "a" letter in Swedish, Finnish, Danish and Norwegian alphabets.

[Social Circles by Marcos Weskamp] Social Circles intends to partially reveal the social networks that emerge in mailing lists. The idea was to visualize in near real-time the social hierarchies and the main subjects they address.

After 4 years spent in London, I know some of the best things the city has to offer, as well as some of the worst. The London Underground fits in the latter. "Transport for London Real-time Map" shows you the line conditions on the subway network, in real time and they even provide a RSS feed. I wish I'd had that when I was there...

Got my new t-shirt today from the GENEVEtokyo online shop. I am really happy with it. The Swiss blood in my veins (I have double nationality) is also satisfied. I chose the one spelling "neutralism", which for me echoes the search for "balance". [via jeansnow]

My contribution to the contest to find the new Gallery logo is now online! What do you think? Do i stand a chance?
Update= I wasn't chosen, go judge for yourself if they did the right choice.

Graphic Design USA - Feature - Corporate Identity - 15 Trends Taking Shape In Logo Design

Osaka:
- SHINNOSKE INC.

Wooster Collective : Stickers / Posters / Graf / Culture Jamming now have a RSS feed, and they did it just for me.

More stickers at Sticker Nation

2ktshirts

How does that guy come up with those design! fold here and there.

updated= Yamaha papercraft: motorcycles and rare animals.
And more than 130 more sites in Japan.

Clocks:
INDUSTORIOUS CLOCK ||| MONO*CRAFTS
The Human Clock and the cable clock

Beautiful and candid Flash animations over at Sinplex. Be sure to reload to get to see another animation.

I.D. Magazine | Student Design Review 2003

Tim Prentice, Dan Roe & Arthur Ganson.

[Wired] Border Space: Lines in the Sand. The border between two lands is more than a line; it reinforces the hopes and fears of the nations that share it.

[Wirefarm] Safety Sign Builder. Make your own industrial warning signs. or here.

All the bitmap / pixel fonts I ever wanted: http://bitmapmania.m78.com/

pixietype.com { new pixel foundry }

04| bitmap

Pixel Dance

all the logos I ever wanted: http://www.logo.nino.ru/

Nederland leeft met water

Martin Presents New Look UPS sponsored by Adobe Illustrator cheap look and crap typeface.

UPDATED
AeroSite Airline Logos

[Boing Boing] Beautifully rendered site comparing the size of different large objects (Eiffel Tower, King King, Star Trek starship, etc.) on a scale of one pixel per meter.

If you don't know Pallalink then you are missing out. I have been checking his photo-blog for months and every new post is soooooo exciting! He plays with pictures he takes in his city of Osaka and transforms them into beautifully complex kaleidoscop-like symmetrical compositions. He will be showing some of his work in Osaka from mid-May to early April and I will make time to go and see him as well as visit my friend Hide.

Robots have feelings too...

Japanese SF posters
Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Posters

Guardian Unlimited | Style guide
via Stuart Woodward.