At Pingmag we are very fortunate in that we often get to do fun and quirky things. Whether it’s researching and dressing up in construction worker clothes, talking to esteemed British designers about their project for a temple in a tiny Japanese countryside village or visiting Japanese toy shops, we’re making something of a reputation for ourselves (at least that is…amongst ourselves…) for doing things a little differently.
So we are proud to present you with something that we are happily continuing this trend - the delicious PingMag Cake!!
How on earth did this all come about? Well. Let me start from the beginning…
Chapter 1: The Search For An Idea
Via a natural turn of events that started some time ago, PingMag decided to do a small collaboration with Japan’s “Web Designing” magazine, the foremost magazine on the subject, to be found on Japanese bookshelves. Rather than just do something like a special feature article or some kind of cool graphic-designed image and take ourselves too seriously, we (that is, PingMag) decided to do something a little more…well, “Ping”.
So the PingMag team sat down together in late December 2005 for a bit of a brainstorm. Then came the brick wall - what kind of stuff could we do that was suitably quirky, that was realistic within the time scale (about 2 weeks) and that would, cruicially, be fun for us to do?
Almost instantly - perhaps because the meeting was just before lunch - the subject of food came up. Chocolates…cake…cookies…we threw around some other ideas ranging from the bizarre (like setting up our office out in the car park and taking a picture of everyone working normally) to the nigh-on impossible (putting the PingMag logo on Tokyo Tower’s LED display) but we kept on coming back to the idea of food, and especially cake.
One quick google search later for inspiration and the answer slowly revealed itself to us - make a special PingMag cake, and take some kind of amusing photo. Put it in Web Designing magazine. Await fame and fortune whilst eating cake.
Chapter 2: The Cake Shop
A Thomas the Tank Engine cake
A somewhat more niche-appeal Beat Takeshi cake
It’s amazing what google throws at you sometimes. Within minutes we were browsing through all sorts of custom cake shops in the Tokyo area. One that particularly caught our eye had a glorious, garish website full of huge pictures of past cakes they made. Their speciality? Printing a photo in edible ink onto the top of the cake. The website showed a frightening variety in the type of photos people put on their made-to-order cakes. Pictures of themselves, pictures of their pets, pictures of celebrities - the world of photo-cakes seemed wonderfully kitsch, and naturally, PingMag wanted in.
Chapter 3: Smile For The Cake
Instead of celebrities or pictures of our pet chihuahua, we decided to make the photo on the top of the cake something to do with PingMag V2 which had just gone online. A couple of hours and some photoshopping later, we had our final composite image - the three main members of the PingMag team in front of a big image of the new website.
After this, we sent the image to the cake shop with instructions to make “something fruity”.
Chapter 4: The Arrival
Beep beep, delivery!
Very excited…
After a few days, the cake was ready to be picked up. Kyoko volunteered to trek across Tokyo and carry the precious cake all the way back to the IMG SRC offices. In the late afternoon the doors burst open and there stood Kyoko triumphantly, with a big, ominous box. We gently laid the box down on the large main meeting desk and gingerly opened the lid…the air was thick with excitement (and the smell of strawberries). The lid came off, our eyes bulged and we all snatched a breath (and I was reminded of the ending scene of Raiders Of The Lost Ark, but I digress) - it was beautiful.
A fruity, colourful combination of cream, sponge, strawberries and melon - arranged around a centerpiece of the PingMag team’s smiling faces. We wanted to dive in right then, but unfortunately, we would have to wait…
Chapter 5: Finding The Right Place
Before the cake lost it’s freshness and before the desire to eat it overwhelmed us, we had to do a photo shoot. This would be the photo that adorned the page of Web Designing magazine, so it had to be just right. We were aiming to find a tiny little cafe somewhere to give the photos a “homely” feel. That, we found, was not such a simple thing to do when you are situated right in the middle of Tokyo.
Add to this the amount of places that we did find that told us politely “uh, no. please leave” when we asked if it would be ok to take a few (hundred) photos made this chapter in the Great PingMag Cake Fiasco by far the most difficult. Until, that is, in an epiphany-stylee, Uleshka spotted a tiny cafe over on the other side of the road from the last place we were kicked out of, and ran over to see what they would say.
The tiny cafe
Cutting the cake for the photoshoot
It turns out that the cafe (which comprised about 3 seats) was run by a very friendly - if slightly bewildered at the sudden interest in his cafe - old man, who had no qualms about inviting us in to take photos.
Chapter 6: Snap Snap Snap
Over the next hour we took hundreds of photos of the cake and ourselves eating the freshly-cut cake (we gave the man a nice big slice) in various poses - we finally settled into a common theme which we thought was funny, Uleshka attacking the cake without mercy, Kyoko picking off all the strawberries with chopsticks and Jon having the cake as a side to his cup of English tea.
After the shoot, we packed everything up, ran back to the office and sent the photos off to Web Designing magazine.
Chapter 7: Today
A few weeks have passed since then, which brings us up to today - the day the new issue hits the shelves. With sweaty palms and beating hearts we opened the magazine and lo, there were our photos! They still make us laugh when we look at them - we hope they do the same for you.
Web Designing magazine issue 2006/2 is available now from your local bookstore.
Web Designing magazine, issue 2006/2
ooh!
More pictures of the Making of PingCake at our flickr gallery.
12 Comments
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As of December 31, 2008, PingMag and sister site PingMag MAKE are both on extended hiatus, and will not be updated for the foreseeable future. We are eternally grateful for your fantastic support over the years.
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None found
Takeshi loses some cool points for that toupee.
good idea guys!
Posted by: Claytonain on January 19th, 2006 at 12:48 am
yummy! now I want to eat some cake…
Posted by: drone9 on January 19th, 2006 at 7:37 am
…you have no idea how much I had to eat…. enough cake for the next months!
if we ever do one again, I would appreciate some eat-helpers
Posted by: Uleshka on January 19th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Hey thanks! Just found the makers of my daughter’s yearned for SharkBoy BD cake! Ah, to be able to fulfill the whims a (soon-to-be) 6 year old.
Posted by: Pat on January 19th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
cake eating helper? Dude, the next time I’m in your area and you are doing a pastry related promotion, I’ll come through for you. Promise
Posted by: claytonian on January 19th, 2006 at 1:15 pm
Next time try something smaller and rounder…2 no 4 no 6 bakers Dozen! I had a cupcake from starbucks today choclate with frosting.
Posted by: x on January 19th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
Great! Great! Great! I wanna work there! Congratulations!
Posted by: Eriksen Costa on January 19th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
Was the cake as good as it looked? I hear Japanese confections are typically somewhat less cloyingly sweet than their EurAmerican counterparts.
Posted by: Crash on May 17th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
thanks for subject. it is very intersting post
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