December 2007
17 posts
Holiday Special #1: Stan Zienka of Attik →
Quiet winter time! Ahh, time to enjoy how laid-back Tokyo can be in this coming New Year’s week. As every year, people flock home, cheerfully go for snowboarding in Hokkaido or recover at a nice onsen in the countryside - and leave this sprawl deserted, at least for a couple of days. (Peaceful time, tough […]
BankART: Creating Art Spaces in Yokohama →
Urban redevelopment through art and culture has been highly profiled in Europe recently, and now, Nantes in France, Essen in Germany and Gateshead in England can call themselves “creative cities.” In Japan, we certainly have similar concepts too! Take a look at the “Creative City Yokohama,” for example: Just about one hour from the capital, […]
Train Design by Kids: “All on board the... →
While waiting on your commuter train, a wagon neatly decorated all over with crayoned swinging monkeys, grazing elephants and prowling snakes pulls into the station. Is the children’s zoo in town? Far from that! This recently happened for real on the Odakyu Line. PingMag got curious and asked them what this was all about: These […]
PingMag MAKE - The Japan-based interview magazine... →
PingMag MAKE is the sister site to PingMag. We use an interview format to put the spotlight on a wide range of people active in rural areas. We document the voices of these unknown heroes and broadcast them to the world. It’s the Japan-based magazine about people and making things, coming out once a week. We’re passing on the passion, ideas, skills, and life stories of people who are building...
Karan Koron: Street Art On Geta →
By now, you must be in the middle of your Xmas festivities back home… So, to break up the routine, we have some fine street art for you, fused with classic Japanese design: Graffiti veteran MakeOne wanted to share his love for things Japanese from a sprayer’s perspective by compiling more than 60 street artists […]
Xmas Delights 2007: Gifts Of Love →
Attention last minute shoppers! With Christmas around the very next corner, you’ll have to hurry up for your annual gift hunt. We know that this comes a bit late for the shipping, but still, you can just make it…! And many of these precious items are ideal for the whole year, that’s for sure! Now, […]
Making Christmas Glitzy →
In the Western worlds, ’tis the season for colour, sparkle and frills. Right. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s Christmas! Whereas in Japan, it’s just another welcomed occasion to decorate your immediate environment with lots of glitzy fun stuff. So, as the (hopefully fake) tree is still the centrepiece of all holiday festivities, it’s only […]
Mavo’s Elegantly Luring Toys (for your bedroom) →
“Is this a gun in your pocket?” “You bet, and it is about to shoot neatly packed condoms at you!” This ironic condom toy gun is only one of the thrilling design works MAVO interior designer Masayuki Takahashi is showing with his first product series called “Honey Trap.” For example, it features other intriguing objects, […]
Japanese Packaging Design #5: Nifty PET bottles! →
Yep, we know PET bottles come with environmental baggage - and with the Eco Fair in Tokyo last week we had hoped to see some alternatives… but we can’t ignore the alluring, curvy shapes that Japanese manufacturers keep coming up with. There are around 13,000 new products thrown onto the shelves of konbini and […]
Jen Stark: Kaleidoscopic Paper Eruptions →
Look at these intriguing, repetitive shapes like eruptions by Miami-based Jen Stark: Her three-dimensional, kaleidoscopic paper art is simply hand-made with dozens of layers of thick coloured paper. With her abstract geometrical patterns just shown in the new Tactile book, PingMag feeds you an interview with the artist about the quality of cardboard. Written by […]
Speedy! Animal Characters As Japanese Shipping... →
Every day, you see lots of these trucks with animal logos passing by on Japan’s streets: often it is a cute black cat carrying a kitten in its mouth (for a delivery service,) or a smiling panda that is slightly sweating while lugging heavy cardboard boxes (for a moving service.) Kawaii! You see, matters of […]
NOOKA: The Info Aesthetics Of A Wrist Watch →
Now, take a look at these awesomely hip-styled NOOKA watches by New York-based Matthew Waldman! You might have spotted them at the last two DesignTide exhibitions in Tokyo, where everybody was gazing at the straight lines, circles, and absolute minimum of numbers that give wearers a sense of feeling the time. Today PingMag catches up […]
Grafuck 3: Bringing Sexy Back →
Yes, we know, it’s been a never ending discussion about the fine line between pornography and art. But the third annual Grafuck edition is once again exploring this delicate intersection. For the third compilation, Californian-based Peter Vattanatham and Fiel Valdez let over sixty illustrators, photographers and graphic designers from across the globe share their most […]
The Great Robot Exhibition →
Not our title - it’s the bold name of the current exhibition at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Ueno, Tokyo: Drooling geeks are flocking right now to The Great Robot Exhibition: karakuri, anime and the latest robots to admire all sorts of automata, androids, anime, toys and other robot lookalikes that emerged […]
Mafuyu’s Knitted Homes →
Imagine a guy wearing a knitted house passes by on the street… Can’t be! Indeed, Mafuyu Murakami a.k.a mafuyu takes this quintessential granny’s hobby to an extravagant level: Who said that knitted items have to have to be boring things like socks? Why not make a knitted tentacle ring, a knitted crown or exquisite bracelets, […]
Yuji Moriguchi’s Erotic Fantasies →
A pregnant woman whose body is entwined tightly with octopus tentacles and a Hokusai-like splashing wave as background; a girl standing still and giving a detached look while a dog’s head disappears right up her skirt obviously doing something there… some of the slightly odd but nevertheless luring scenes depicted by Yuji Moriguchi. This Tokyo-based […]
Jum Nakao: Paper Fashion Art →
Art and fashion, costume design and animation - Brazilian Jum Nakao is versatile and playful: Either turning his “A costura do invisivel” fashion show into a happening, where his most delicate paper dresses get torn apart. Or making his whole line a tribute to acclaimed animation filmmakers the Brothers Quay… Now, for the launch of […]