skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Sapporo have put out a few retro beer can designs this year, along with what (I think) is a different kind of lager beer than the standard black label they put out at the moment. The last one I saw was alright, but this new one is a really nice piece of design:
Needless to say that this would be my beer of choice all the time if it were widely available in this can. Not that I put design before flavour or anything... And as a last throw away line, I do much prefer drinking beer from 330ml cans than from the 500ml cans that are standard for beer in the UK.
This Saturday post is brought to you by the following Monday and the smell of a freshly mown lawn.
OK, so there's a lot of crazy / creepy / "cute" stationery out there in Japan, but in Tokyu Hands the other day I was handed this and was so mesmerised that I could not leave without buying it.
Immediately I thought "Oh, I'll send it to Bunny" but quickly decided that no, this is mine. The sheer terror of the other children being attacked by a personified baby's ass, the realisation on the face of the baby of his horrible alter ego... there's a solid internal logic to it that really appeals to me.
Also, on the back:
"Hello! Hello!"
"Run away!!"
I'll probably use it for accounts or something.
Last year I went to see an exhibition by the artist and designer Kiyoshi Awazu at Miyanomori Art Museum. I wrote about it here too, with some images of Awazu's work. Sadly I just read (here) that Awazu passed away last month.
I really loved his work, he made me want to paint everything with the most vibrant colours I could find. More so than usual I mean. I found a publicity photo of the exhibition that I saw that should give you an idea of how great his work was.
And here's another example of his vivid palette and flair for montage.
It's a sad loss, but I'm sure he'll continue to inspire me and many others for a long time to come.
From the same people that brought you the awesome Lemogre and Acerola and Lemon packaging I wrote about before:
Choco-Banana-Au-Lait. It's pretty nice for a milk drink, and I approve of the infinite regression / bunny-girl crossover they've gone with.
In weather news we seem to have entered a "Bonus Winter Stage" where the weather reverts to the same sporadic snow, freezing winds, and death-trap streets that we had back in December. I'm cool with it, y'know I love the snow, but if I'm really honest... it's been winter here now for at least four months. Spring will probably be pretty nice.
On Sunday I went to a great exhibition of the works of Kiyoshi Awazu, at a tiny gallery in a huge building in Miyanosawa, Sapporo.
Seriously, the gallery is like, three rooms and some wall-space in the hall, and the building is enormous. The reason is, it looks like the rest of the complex is given over to holding wedding ceremonies and receptions. I think I mentioned it before, but they have their own wedding chapel, and this time I arrived when one was actually going on. The entrance was crowded by young people in suits and spectacular dresses, and inside elderly relatives chaperoned howling child-beasts to the toilet and back. The staff are always immaculately turned out, of course, so it was pretty much me and the two other women in the gallery who were wearing anything the slightest bit casual. I mean, being a six foot five caucasian I'm pretty used to standing out, but this was a whole new level of sore-thumbness. As you're walking between the gallery's two sections you go past a huge panoramic window looking out onto the wedding chapel garden, and looking up at the rest of the building I could see backs of the bride and groom as someone made a speech next to them. It was kinda fun really.
The gallery is small, but it's really good. They use their space really well, and they have a weird hobbit-sized door that connects two of the bits together. I have no idea why they would use a doorway that even Japanese people have to stoop to get through, but it works really well for making you take a good long look at the room you're stepping into, since for all you know there's a gallery attendant lurking out of sight ready to bash you on your head as you emerge.
Bash you on the head and sell your body. To ART.
Anyhow, Awazu (who has a spectacularly comprehensive website here) seems to have become famous through his poster work, which allowed him the freedom to make a bewildering amount of other art. Paintings, sculptures, installations, books on design theory... it's a pretty darn impressive body of work. His posters were for everything from films to plays to political rallies (he seems to have worked often with anti-war organizations) and they comprised the majority of the exhibition. They were really awesome, and showed off a fantastic sense of design:
I love that one for The Friends, the flag-faced guy really reminds me of some of DoseOne's work for his band Subtle. And since Subtle are one of my favourite bands... it'd be nice to think I'm clocking their influences.
Like I said, his website is stocked, in English, and most of you can't really make it out to this tiny exhibition in the middle of nowhere, so check it out.
I spent all night bashing out this baby, so I'm posting pretty much the same thing on here and Loom tonight (albeit here I'm keeping my prose less concise and enigmatic... sort of). Chris asked me to do a logo for Heroes of Cartography an absolute age ago, and I finally got something to start with:
The map is an old OS map of Snowden, and the background and fist colours are spotted from that map. If they're happy with it I'll probably toy around with it a lot more, layout, texture, font, colour... It's like a wikipedia vortex, once you start you just get sucked further and further in.
