Spring Playlist 2011

I definitely don't think "No Music, No Life" applies to me, but perhaps "No Music, No Design Work Done" does. That stressful past week was helped greatly by some great music and I think that's worth thanking for.

1) The Strokes 'Angles'

It's a bit too happy-sounding for my personal liking, but in any case I've been constantly listening to it since its release. A lot of high pitch guitar sound throughout the album, which I love. 'Taken For A Fool' is my favorite track, oh and 'Machu Picchu'.
個々の曲が違ったアイディアでかなり異なっている割には、ポジティブで聴きやすい。あまり引っかかりがないなと思っていたけれど、なんだかんだ発売以来ずっと聴き続けている。'Taken For A Fool'はかなり好き。アルバム通して、ギターがキューンキュン鳴りまくっていてツボ。



2) Katy B 'On a Mission'

Another great young unpretentious female singer from England (others could include Lily Allen, Adele, Ellie Goulding, Duffy etc).
'On a Mission' single was in Annie Mac's compilation album and that's how I found out about Katy B. Her voice just works so well with dance music. There are so many dance music around but this album remained to be a bit different, although within the album all the songs pretty much have similar idea.
Lily Allen, Adele, Duffy, Ellie Gouldingときて、今年はKaty BとJessie Jと行った具合に、イギリスは才能のある若い（ちょっとぽっちゃり気味な）女性シンガーが毎年出て来る。
ダンスミュージック（未だにDubStepがなんなのだかよくわからないけれど）だけれども、全体を通してビートとベースが重すぎす、かなりメロディアスでメインストリーム受けも良いはず。彼女の声もちょっと楽器っぽいので、癖なく聴ける。



3) Metronomy 'English Riviera'

Metronomy completely nailed the texture in this album. I don't know how else to describe it. Its tactility just feels right.
Lately there are so many songs that sing the names of cities or places. It's a little silly but I often seem to like those songs too. I don't know why, it may to do with my love for traveling or I may portray a dream of visiting such places. Anyway 'The Bay' is my favorite track.
ノスタルジックで、メランコロニーで、美しいエレクトロニック・ミュージック。ダンス要素はほとんどなく派手さもゼロな、まったり脱力系。なんて書くと、ジャンルとしては違ってもthe XX, AIR, Passion Pitなんかも当てはまるのかもしれない。つまり飽きれちゃうほど、自分はこういう音楽が、どうしようもないくらいど真ん中。

Jakarta, April 2011

Indonesia has history of colonization by the Dutch, English and Japanese, and influence of such colonization appeared every here and there, notably the use of alphabets and Dutch influenced buildings. With my background of Japan, Holland and England, those things made me feel a bit awkward, if not guilty. The history has got absolutely nothing to do with myself as an individual but sometimes such feelings cannot be helped.

I've been to churches, temples, shrines and a synagogue, but it was my first time going inside a mosque. I am not religious but I actually like religious buildings. Good ones are always well taken care of, and you can really see that people SERIOUSLY keep the place clean with love and respect. They are also so peaceful, even ones in middle of a city.
There's a saying in Japanese, "You only rely on Gods when you are in trouble（困ったときの神頼み）" and that has quite a sarcastic connotation but I personally think it's totally fine to pray for Gods only when you are in trouble. There are times, like you know, bad break-ups or when your loved ones die, and you just need to be away from caos, be in an absolutely peaceful place, have your mind clear, to think better.
I liked the mosque in Jakarta as well. A town with a great religious building is always a great gift. Its mosque was very big, and more welcoming than I was expecting.


インドネシアのオランダ、イギリス、日本に占領されていた歴史の陰は、様々な場面で現れて、それらに対してなんとなく罪悪感を抱かずにはいられなかった。歴史と自分個人という人間は何も関係ないと思っていても、なんとなく。
日本のブランドや企業の進出にも少し驚いた。トイレはみんなTOTOだし、日本のデパートが並んでるし、日本車のシェアは日本国内よりも高かった。そこは嬉しくなるというか、誇らしくもなった。同時に、韓国の進出もかなり目立った形で認識出来て、SamsungやLGの派手で大々的な広告やキャンペーン、ラヂオから流れる韓国のポップソングなんかを考えると、日本独走の陰りは明白。やはり次の数年でまた状況は大きく変わるのでしょう。

Year 2 Portfolio DONE

DONE AND SUBMITTED!

With color-coded sleeves and an unusual (perhaps a little unprofessional) semi-transparent plastic box from Muji! Possibly my cutest portfolio to date! As well as final products (which I've been posting on this blog/website), it comes with lots of other goodies!
Each unit project come with two sleeves: one for the process and one for the final outcomes. I hope it's clear.

Portfolio Preparation

Our year is going crazy at the moment. The reason why: ASSESSMENT = PORTFOLIO HAND IN.
Following is what I need to include:

In another words, it's going to be a pack of following stuff:

I'm referring to these two books:

I'm not using so much of "How to Make Books" one but "Winning Portfolio" is a good reference. It's by Cath Caldwell, who was our year leader last year. It's for industry aimed portfolios and that's quite different from university assessment portfolio, but is still nice to see different ideas. Anyway, let's get back to work.

The Web is meant to be updated

I've created new top page for my website! It was pretty dull before and I've always wanted to make it more engaging so here it is! Using my own Yava font! I like websites which immediately communicates what are the new and updated parts and I hope mine does that now in clearer and more engaging way.

You can check it out live on my website.

There are a lot of things I want to do with my website and I'm planning to gradually develop it in next week or so. That includes the use of Yava font. I'm hoping to use Yava for most, if not all of my branding. From my CV to business card to website to other things... So those need make over too! I've always used Futura, and is possibly my favorite font of all time, but I like the idea of using the font that's original to me. Plus my friends have been saying that Yava sort of resembles me. It's quite funny how people's typefaces resembles the creator. Especially how my friend Vicke's typeface looked exactly like her was really funny.

Use of Yava typeface probably needs a bit of testing before it goes full branding of myself. In any case this is the list of things that I hope to accomplish in terms of my web design and updates:

Gili Trawangan, April 2011

No motorcycle nor cars. Horses and bicycles being the only means of transportation. Gili Trawangan is a tiny island of Lombok's Gili islands, quite close from Bali. We stayed in a hotel called Martas. The photo directly above is the hotel's swimming pool. Staff there were very, and I mean very, nice and friendly. Especially Joanna Green, who's British and greeted us warmly even before our arrival. The room is basically a little two story cottage with a veranda where you can have siesta or eat breakfast etc, which was our favorite part. I would recommend this hotel to anyone who's thinking of visiting Gili Trawangan. My friend really had good choice since she's the one who booked it for us (thank you!).
Cycling around the whole island takes like 40 minutes or so. It's really small. In that respect there isn't much to do there. It just has nice vibe and relaxing time, if that's you want then this is the place for you. Beaches are amazingly beautiful. No fancy high-tech clubbing venues like the ones in Bali, but actually had really good music (Bali and even in Gili, all the DJs seem to be from the West) and was priceless enjoying great music and vibe while looking at the beautiful stars from the terrace of a 'club'.
People there seem to be keen on recycling and preserving the nature, which I suppose that is the only way for it to survive as a touristic attraction, and tourists also seem to be respecting it. That's why the place was clean, in terms of no waste and garbage laying around, which is always nice.

車もバイクさえもない島、ギリ・トラワンガン。交通手段は自転車と馬のみ。バリからバスと船で５時間くらいだったかな。良くも悪くも騒がしく都会的な面を持つバリに比べて、ゆっくりしていて、美しい場所。バリのビーチは波が高く、サーフィンをする人たちにはすごく良いみたいだけれど、海水浴には向いておらず、シュノーケルや海水浴はギリの方が綺麗でいいです。
バリにいるようなチャラい兄ちゃんタイプもおらず、ギリの観光客は３０代の落ち着いたカップルや友達グループ、バックパッカー、家族連れがメインでだいぶ落ち着いている雰囲気。
リサイクルや環境保護には力を入れているらしく、ゴミはないし、気持ちがいい。馬の糞は道ばたにぼろぼろ落ちているけれど、それくらいはご愛嬌。

Yava Poster and Magazine Advertising

So this is the typeface that I've been developing for the past few weeks. It is called Yava and looks like this:

All the capitals are funky and geometric and lowercases are simple and thin, so that you can mix and match depending on how funky or simple you want to be.
I've also produced a poster and a magazine ad, to promote the font. The idea behind them is to show many different ways you can spell a word by mixing the funky caps and simple lowercases.
The poster:



And the magazine ad:


People work differently but I personally prefer making different rough versions and illustrating any ideas to see what works and what doesn't. I try not to overwrite and I keep on creating new pages or new files just in case if I want to go back or compare, it's there. This kind of workflow was adopted at where I was interning (Agent Provocateur) and it's really good that it stuck with me. It's particularly helpful when you are showing it to your friends asking for some advice- they might actually like the design you once ditched. Again, I got good comments from Duarte and JT the day before the crit. Helped me a lot as usual. Thank you.
Followings are just some of the versions and ideas that I had before reaching the final ones above. I was initially going for the word LOVE and also had this crazy idea of using our tutor Phil Baines' face, showing how much we love him. At late night alone in front of a computer, it was funny. A day after it turned out that it wasn't that funny, so I didn't go with that idea. (But we still love you Phil.)




Full font coming available to download very soon!

Tablier Lethaby

I made a set of aprons using photographs of our current st.Martins campus (Lethaby building), which we have to leave behind in few months time. I will post more details about this project on the blog or on my website sometime soon, but the core concept is about bringing history of our current campus into the new campus. It's appropriate because people will still be wearing aprons in the new buildings.

So, today I spent photographing the aprons with my pretty models. Two aprons that I made are, one is the image of Graphic Design silkscreen studio floor (hence the paint), and the other one is the floor of Textile Design studio (hence the thread). That's why we photographed actually in location, in the silkscreen studio and Textile Design studio, as well as some still shots in the corridor of our beautiful building. I got some nice stills as well as models (pretend to be) working in the workshops.

Photos turned out to be super cute. I'm proud of my choice of adorable models. Thank you to both Krisi and Florence for helping me out in this super-busy time of the year. I just noticed that this blog has turned into a 'thank you' blog. I feel like I'm thanking people in every post.

I have to repeat but my models were just so cute, I even made this animation gif:

Bali, April 2011

My first time in South East Asia.
My first time riding on a motorcycle with three people.
My first time seeing people with a house without gas nor electricity.
My first time eating fried rice with my own hands.
My first time seeing male whores on streets.
If I think back about it now, a lot of things I've done there were things that I've done for the first time in my life. At the same time there isn't any single event that really surprised me. Indonesia was different but, the parts that I've seen at least, weren't dramatically different from Western or Japanese standard. In a sense that I am recommending it to my parents, who are definitely not up for crazy adventure.
Despite the differences, I did feel quite safe and comfortable being there. The country and people seem to be warm and relaxed, which sometimes required some patient waiting.

The time when I got D&AD result and my friend bought beer for us to celebrate together in the hotel room in Bali was certainly one of my highlights of the trip. Thank you friend.
I miss Bintang (Indonesian beer) and especially Frestea (Indonesian ice tea).

バリは観光地で、日本や欧米とあまり変らないのに、一歩中に入ると、電気やガスのない家で暮らしている人たちがいた。考えてみると、電気やガスのない生活をしている人と交流するのは初めてだった。可哀想とか、すごいとか、驚いたというより、あまりに当たり前で普通だった。
「初めて」なことが色々あったインドネシア旅行だったのだけれど（バイクに３人乗りをしたり、手でチャーハンを食べたり、男の売春夫が道にいたり）、生活している人たちにとって「当たり前」なことだからか、割と驚く暇もなく、違和感なく受け入れらたことばかり。
物乞いの子供とか、道ばたで人から声をかけられたりとか、物売りの人たちとか迷惑じゃなかったかと聞かれるけれど、まったくストレスじゃなかった。ヨーロッパで言われたら傷つくようなことも、インドネシアではまったく気にならない。彼らから敵意を感じられないというか、温かくて良い人が多いというか、欧米に比べてせこくないというか、なんとなく過ごしやすかった。未知の土地だからそれなりに緊張もしたけれど、ヨーロッパにいるよりも安心出来た面もあったように思う。