I was just interviewed in English and Italian for the Milan Triennale Design Museum / La Triennale di Milano Design Museum by Alice Twemlow, Chair of New York’s School of the Visual Arts’ Design Criticism Department. The interview is featured in A Diary of an Exhibition– the logbook of Graphic Design Worlds, the exhibition that will open in January 2011 at the Triennale Design Museum in Milan.

Curated by Giorgio Camuffo, the exhibition will display the multifarious worlds of graphic design by featuring the work, the ideas and the stories of some of the most interesting designers in the contemporary international scene.

Featured on the blog are texts, interviews, videos, pictures, and photographs, as well as thoughts and considerations, that provide a look behind the scenes of the making of the exhibition.

Read the interview here.

I just had some work published in a new book of identity design. Details from the publisher:

Designers’ Identities, by Liz Farrelly and published by Laurence King in November 2010 showcases the corporate identities of 76 designers, at various stages of their careers and from around the world, providing blueprints for best practice and inspiration.

For graphic designers no project is more personal or more crucial, both in terms of commercial success and peer-group positioning, than their own corporate identity. From the first hello, to delivering the invoice, designers are judged, again and again, on the quality of their printed and virtual presentation. This includes their
company name, logo, business card, letterhead, website, blog, newsletter, delivery packaging, brochures, promos, even the typeface they choose.

Along with detailed information about formats, materials and methods, the book includes a number of interviews with designers, who talk through their own corporate identity programme and the reactions they have had to this, their most
personal design project.

Details:
350 colour illustrations
290 x 210 mm
272 pages
Paperback

Full overview here.

Holistic identity design for Nonaca LLC, a Tokyo-based art production company including logo, type standards, color standards, print materials and website.

New signature keitai kisekae/cellphone theme for WKTokyoLab’s mobile device shop. Kisekae are sets of images that users can download to create a holistic theme for their phone.

The theme I created for the TokyoLab music label is called “Utopia” and is based on visual elements from a music video that I did in collaboration with the Lab folks for NHK a few years ago. This one is a soft fusion of traditional Japanese patterns and modular futuristic architectural elements.

The theme is completely animated, with custom-designed icons for battery power and signal strength, a smart display that analyzes the time of day and generates one of four different appropriate images (morning, afternoon, evening, night), mail sending screen, mail receiving screen, incoming and outgoing call screens, and a ton more stuff.

In Japan, you can use your phone to browse to this address and download the theme.

The new issue of Idea features an interview with design legend Karel Martens, which I edited.

I’ll be participating in a really interesting event in Osaka this weekend- an overview of the work of Schtücco, the Tokyo-based graphic design and typography office run by Akiyama Shin. On December 11th at 8pm, I’ll be interviewing Shin onstage about multilingual typography and the development of his design office, as well as its calculated death, as Shin is retiring from the graphic design profession (at least for now).

A super-accomplished typographer, designer and art director, Shin has steered his office through the creation of innumerable projects for cultural clients in Japan and abroad, taking home the Leipzig book award no less than twice.

The interview and accompanying exhibition of a lifetime of graphic design work takes place at Pantaloon in Osaka.

If you are in town, I’d venture that it will be the graphic design event of the year in terms of getting context on an award-winning, comprehensive graphic designer from the 1980s through today.

Roommate, conspirator and fine art photographer Patrick Tsai will be having an exhibition in Osaka this weekend, as well, so no better time to get some visual culture in than Saturday! (Excellent interview with Patrick by Cameron McKean here.)

I’ve been doing a rash of talk shows/on-stage interviews as of late. This past weekend, I spoke about the work of Tokyo-based oil painter Akira as part of a Scotch Malt Whisky Society event called Ménage à Trois which assessed the triumvirate of whiskey, cocktails and fine art. The event was produced by Nonaca in collaboration with Whisk-e, and was an utter smash!

Out now: Designer’s Whisky- a duo of fantastic Scottish whiskies from Japan/Uk spirits importer/exporter Whisk-e that I designed the labels for.

One is a 13 year old Bowmore from Islay.

The other is a 10 year old Caol Illa.

Both will knock your socks off- premium whiskies in bespoke packaging that is a mix of custom patterns, Wordshape fonts, and modern layouts.

Huge thanks to David Croll for the chance to collaborate.

Also, available now via MyFonts/Wordshape: Hanger.

Hanger is a limited character display typeface. Based on the shapes of the alphabet if made out of a bent wire hanger, Hanger is suitable for apparel design, merchandising, and identity design projects.

Really nice thoughts on the Type Sketcher project from Akira Kobayashi, the type director of Linotype.

I got to spend some time with Akira last month one-on-one for the first time. We’ve been in contact for a few years, as I interviewed him for PingMag ages ago, as well as for my book, Parallel Strokes. We met up at TypeCon in Los Angeles earlier this year, then finally sat down and chopped it up in Ebisu a few weeks ago. He brought along an original print that uses Caslon’s O.G. grotesk for discussion, and we talked about the state of typography and typographic education in Japan.

A few days later, I caught his presentation on Japanese folks working in the arts and industry of lettering and type design outside of Japan at Aoyama Book Center. It was quite engaging- covering the work of Kunihiko Okano and a number of others.

I can’t emphasize how important Kobayashi-san is as a connecting force in the world of graphic design- he brings people together from all over the world with a maximum of kindness and openness. Japan needs more informal ambassadors out in the world to help push design and design education.

Brand video for Onitsuka Tiger’s new “Aisen” line of shoes- made with traditionally dyed indigo denim. View the video here.

Animated information graphics for the ASICS Olympic website for the Dutch Olympic team.