London Olympics 2012

It may as well be once in a life time opportunity to have an Olympics hosted in my own city, and despite my very low interest in sports (the only thing I watch is World Cup and Euros), I find myself unexpectedly enjoying it.

I love seeing random countries and random teams playing random sports, for instance China vs S. Korea women's volleyball or women's gymnastics. But of course it's been fun following Japanese football team as well as Team GB medal scores. Funnily enough, I'm not following the Dutch team at all.

I thank Internet for allowing me to watch all these random games of random nations. A bit of a time waster, but I'm enjoying all the drama and tears, it's touching to say the least.


自分の住んでる街でオリンピックがあることなんて、一生に一回の可能性だってあるのだから、まあチケットでも取ってみるかなー程度の期待度だったのですが、始まってみると意外とオリンピック楽しい。
ぶっちゃけ、スポーツ観戦に興味があるわけでもないし、北京オリンピックでは１競技も観なかったので、ただのミーハー心なのだけれど、いやはや面白い。

十数競技が同じ時間に平行して行われるわけだから、普段どこの国も、テレビ中継やニュースというのは、自分の国の強い選手しかとりあげないけれど、今はネット（イギリスはBBC、オランダはNOS）で、どこ競技も中継と録画をいつでも観れるので、かなり便利。ちなみにオリンピック音痴の私は、十数競技が同時進行なことさえも知りませんでした。
中国対マレーシアの男子シングルバトミントン決勝やら、ブラジル対知らないどっかの国の女子ビーチバレーボールなんかをだらだらと観ていて、スポーツにも興味ないし、選手も知らないし、国も関係ないので、客観的に観ているはずが、ドラマがあって意外と感動してしまうものです。

オリンピックこんなに面白いなら、２０２０年東京オリンピックになればいいなと適当に願っております。

Post-Degree Show

It's been unexpectedly incredibly busy after the degree show. From looking at previous years, our year seemed to had believed that "the design industry hunts for new talents at degree shows is a myth that rarely happens". But many from my year seem to already found jobs through the degree show, it seems like degree show as a place to get jobs could work. So if you are in second or first years, keep your hopes up, it can work.

From what I see, it seems like the industry doesn't really go to degree show actively searching for the new talent. But rather they go to degree shows just for fun, and they see some work that fits with their current project, and they contact the student if he or she would like to do some work for them. So there is already a nice fit from the very beginning, that students' works are relevant to the studio's. That's my personal experience and I do see that's the case for few others around.

For that reason, it helps to put work that really represents you. My space demonstrated no skills or no design sensitivities, but as I look back to it now, it really reflected my personality and my long-time interests. That was a happy accident and I'm grateful now, as I am currently enjoying the post-degree show times.



ご無沙汰してます。卒業式を半月後に控え、卒展後の充実した日々を過ごしています。

去年の卒業生の様子から、「卒展がきっかけで、仕事が降ってくるなんてことはない」という共通認識があったのですが、多くの友達が卒展をきっかけに仕事をもらっており、どうやら卒展で仕事って決まるものみたい。なので、今まだ大学に在学中の子たちは期待してもいいと思います。

結局、グラフィックデザインの場合、アートやファッションのように「よし、卒展で素晴らしい才能を発掘するぞ！」と出かけて、卒業生に声をかけていく、というわけではなく、趣味で行った卒展で、今自分たちがやってるプロジェクトに合う生徒をたまたま見つけたので、声をかけてみた、という形が多い気がする。私もそういった感じで声をかけてもらっており、最終的にお仕事を引き受けるかどうかは別として、自分と似たプロジェクトをしている会社の方々と話をするのは、お互いにとって有意義。


In any case, post-degree show consisted of watching a lot of football.
Followings are fabulous images from The Green Soccer Journal specially dedicated blog for Euro 2012. Art direction is rather slick (wearing football uniform with Burberry jacket and Acne jeans is totally great), but also successfully tell a lot of story within each image. 

(All images from The Green Soccer Journal)

Three Weeks in

Three weeks has passed since the start of the term. So much and so little have happened, I don't know how to comprehend. This marks the end of January and I have about 6 months of life in London to go? INSANE.

Few selected highlights of those three weeks.

A lecture by Spanish illustrator/designer Javier Mariscal. Frankly, one of the most entertaining lectures I've ever been. His entire presentation was done in a series of movies, with music and animation, along with his live voice over (and singing). A lot of humour. Very Spanish. Made us all happy and laughed out loud. He sort of became a little legend among us.
I've always liked what he did for H&M in Barcelona, which I think I saw in Wallpaper* magazine. I have visited there specifically to see his design when I was in Barcelona.

More of his work can be seen at his Estudio Mariscal website.


Arduiono workshop with Angus:

Arduino is a kit that allows you to do physical computing easily and it's something I've never known before the start of this school year. I have never thought I'd be interested in such a thing (I chose graphic design because I was more interested in two dimensional objects in general over physical stuff), but this thing is so exciting. You can attach whole kinds of sensors for inputs, and it also can have various output modes.
Hardware and software are both open source and you can find more information at arduino.cc


Time/Speed self-set brief:

I've done series of experiments, timing myself as well as setting time limit to my activity. I've also done series of 'how much can I do in 3 hours' experiments. One of which was to record how far I can walk in 3 hours. I started in Old Street tube station, headed west, and ended up in West Ealing 3 hours later.
More information about the progress of my self-set project will be noted soon!


週７（！）で学校行って、大学の図書館でバイトして、日々の生活の中では大学関係の人としか会わないし、大学と家の往復の毎日という生粋の大学っ子。
毎日新しいことを知って、学んで、成長出来て、本当にそれは幸せなことで。でも大学というのは、守られた、小さな世界であることも事実なので、いつかは出なければいけないし、幸せな場所で幸せに完結するわけにもいかないので。４年間幸せに過ごしてきたのだから、そろそろまた苦しいのもいいよね。

自分は、「裕福な家庭で、外国でのびのびと育って、英語も幼いうちから喋れるラッキーな子」という印象を与えてしまうことが多いというのも、自覚していて。自分も、少し前までは「上辺で判断して、あたしの苦労も知らないでー」とぐれていたのだけれど、割と最近になって、自分は「努力」はしてきたかもしれないけれど、「苦労」は一切してきていないと気づいた。どんな境遇の人でも、努力はするべきだと思うけれど、苦労はしなくて済むのならしなくていいのだから、やはり自分は恵まれているなあと思います。親への一番の感謝はそこだと思う。なら、苦労しなくて済んだ分、努力したいです。

本当、自分に足りないものだらけで、毎日悔しいから、この際成長してみせるよー。

Graphic meets Football: The Green Soccer Journal

I recently came across a magazine called "The Green Soccer Journal". It's a magazine about the world of football presented with lovely visuals. I was all over it during my latest visit to Magma.

The newest issue is on French football but you can see spreads of first issue in this video:



It's got an amazing photography, and interviews/writing seemed to be quite interesting too. The newest issue also features Peter Saville as contributor. The Umbro advertising at the back is totally beautiful.
No sexy women or car adverts. I'm pretty sure this magazine meets a demand.
It's a London based publisher, and it's quite odd why they chose to call themselves soccer journal instead of football.

美しい写真とデザインで構成された『グリーン・サッカー・ジャーナル』という名のサッカー雑誌が素敵。裏表紙のUmbroの広告も好き。
今の職場では、お昼休みになると、男性一同がテーブルサッカー(foosball)をして、仕事が終わると、みんなでプレステでFIFAをやっているし、大学でも先生も生徒も熱烈サッカーファンが多い。クリエイティブ関係の人のサッカー好き人口も多いから、こういうデザインやヴィジュアルにこだわった、チープじゃないサッカー誌の需要はある気がする。仲の良いポルトガル人の友達は、彼の行くサッカーのウェブサイトは水着のお姉さんの広告だらけでいつも嫌がっているし。


On their blog, they also had a post about a designer called Zoran Lucić. His work has a retro feel and is an original take for football graphics. I'm very much against putting posters of idols/athletes up, but these, I wouldn't mind having them up on my walls: