Tokyo Design Week 2006 report

10 Nov 2006 Category: Events & Exhibitions, Features, Japan, Products

Tokyo Design Week 2006 report

Comfortable? PingMag was out and about testing every product and visiting every possible event during Tokyo Design Week to report for you

If I tried to sum up this year’s TOKYO DESIGN WEEK - which consists of 100% Design, Tokyo Designer’s Week with the container ground exhibition and the Student Design exhibition, Designboom market and Design Tide - then I must say that altogether everything seemed much quieter than last year… I missed the Big Brits who were always the first with a pint in their hand at any event last year, the Icon magazine banned the sexy Japanese pole dance performers from this year’s party altogether, a roof-top party didn’t take place and major mood masters KleinDytham weren’t even in town… Nevertheless - TOKYO DESIGN WEEK is always worth checking out, especially because things turned out a little different this year…

Written by Uleshka and Verena

Welcoming our new PingMag member Verena on the first day of DESIGN WEEK - we had one more person on board helping to cover all possible events. We sheered out to different events on the “official opening party evening”, Tuesday, 31st - but all ended up at Design Tide’s Main Event space. Why? Simply because that turned out to be the nicest spot to be in throughout the whole week!


Sticky Party! Design Tide opening party with smiling guests but… we spare you images of the gluey floor.

The lovely Design Tide tape everywhere! Cover a simple chair completely and it turns to an art object immediately

Tokyo Designer’s Week with its 100% design, the Designboom market and the container ground exhibition were all in the same spot: the lovely Jingu Gaien being located at the end of a long ginko tree avenue. The large “tent” hosted 100% Design and the Design Boom market, whereas the containers were arranged in a big U - leaving some green grass space for Tokyo’s design students to place their colorful furniture projects in the middle, with an extra tent for events, talks etc. - all under the theme of LOVE!

Entering 100% Design. Still seems relaxed but later on it got really crowded with countless curious people.

Design Tide’s overall theme was PEACE, or to be precise, it was ______&PEACE. Until this year, Design Tide placed their featured products or projects in selected shops and event spaces scattered all over Tokyo. This year, however, they had their first own main event space on Meiji Dori - which made all the difference!

Well, that was not part of the exhibition. Just the limbo for all the packages and plastics to be recycled eventually - but what a nice backdrop!

I guess people who have been to Design Tide will continue talking about the sticky ground they had on the third floor of the occupied building (someone decided to tear out the carpet in the last second…). That had nothing to do with the exhibited works, but was a good conversation starter (”Hello! Is this your shoe stuck over there?” “No, thanks - I lost mine 2 hours ago…”). Not only was the atmosphere super friendly and heartwarming, the guys from Design Tide really put a lot of emphasis on sustainability, recycling and an overall design awareness. Well done!

Nice logo for the treasured trash initiative.

Enough introduction now!

Here is our BEST OF DESIGN WEEK - a selection of everything that happened in town that week.

BEST OUTDOOR FURNITURE:
Nichiesu (100% Design)

This handy Nichiesu assembly tree consists of a whole set of outdoor furniture. How practical!

Is it a futuristic plastic tree? Kind of, if you have one of those on your veranda I guess it would fit in nicely next to your palm tree. In fact, this round shaped basketwork sculpture is an assembly of garden furniture from the Japanese company Nichiesu. In their effort of saving space as well as designing minimalistic outdoor tools they succeeded greatly! This big olive coloured tree consists of 5 parts: two bigger and two smaller seats together with a small 5 o’clock tea table. Cozy, handy, weather-proof and beautiful. What else could you ask for outside?

MOST ELEGANT LIGHT SOLUTION:
Flexilight by Jos Kranen (Design Tide)

No more ugly dangling cords in your house. Flexilight is the elegant light system designed by Jos Kranen.

In the imaginary SF country everything is made of electrifying metal and neon. Flexilight by Dutch Jos Kranen looks like it fell out of this land to educate us in the art of electronic frailty: This extendable light system meanders along the wall like electrodes on a chip board. Along the road they split in several lines to find their endings in light bulbs. “I designed Flexilight out of sheer frustration”, Jos admits on his website. He didn’t like the ugly extension cords he had to use for his lamps after he had moved to a new place, so he just designed something more convenient to avoid dangling cords ever again. He used low-voltaged LED and connected parts that can be expanded all over the house. How sophisticated!

MOST DOWN TO EARTH RESEARCH:
Pewter Stool by Max Lamb (Design Tide)


First Max poures pewter in the molding ground.

And out comes a wonderful table from the sands.

For Design Tide Max carved out a chair set out of styrofoam surrounding his Pewter chair in the middle.

Max Lamb’s presentation at Design Tide’s PechaKucha Night was touching. Just how you think a life of a real designer should be like: travelling the world, watching local craftsmen at work, coming up with relevant projects and collaborating. While still at the RCA in London, this is exactly what Max has been doing: down to earth research and trial and error products fusioning local knowledge and his creative mind. Back to good old England, he visited his home Cornwall and decided to create something out of what is local there: pewter (a form of lead) and sandy beaches. What did he come up with? He created a negative shape for a stool out of sand and poured hot pewter into it. After a few minutes an astonishingly heavy and beautiful piece of furniture was created! Wow! He just graduated and now started working at a famous British design studio - hope he will still find time to continue his impressingly beautiful down-to-earth projects!

MOST IMPRESSIVE PATTERN DESIGN:
Kimono patterns going up the wall by Jotaro Saito (100% Design)

Food for your eye: Jotaro Saito’s rich traditional Japanese Kimono patterns cover all of your house.

Jotaro Saito has been actually one of the youngest Kimono designers around. To bring some fresh air in this fashion genre he is now expanding his floral Kimono patterns all over the house: He created not only one wallpaper in saturated golden, silver and red but simply mixed several different patterns together in a patchwork style. That didn’t stop him from covering furniture like a couch or a lamp with his rich patterns and even shoes. Thanks to the darker tone you don’t feel overwhelmed by the colours, they even give a kind of comforting feel. Would love my next hotel room to look like that!

BEST CONTAINER INSTALLATION:
Hulger prison (Container Ground)


MoshiMoshi? Can you hear me on the other side?

Yes! Oh, it is so much fun to talk for free… even in prison!

The art of communication – in a prison environment. The Hulger phone installation shows new ways of talking whilst seperated - through glass.

Although Hulger phones were already exhibited at Designer’s Week last year, their neat prison phone installation simply made everybody smile - and talk to each other for hours. Interesting to watch how much speechless couples suddenly have to say to one another once they are separated through a glass wall….

MOST “I want one, too!”- ITEM:
Pink Flamingos from Viable (Container Ground)

Viable are actually a London based design company. Here they enchanted everybody with their cute flamingo arrangement in silver and pink. All 98 flamingos were sold on the last day of Design Week - within 35 minutes!

This year London’s Designers Block rented a couple of containers to present their works. British designer team Viable simply stuck to the theme of LOVE and jammed countless pink flamingos in their shiny silver container. It certainly made everyone stop and for those who asked, they even had a little story: “It’s like a scene in a club. Tons of birds around but only two who really match! Once it gets dark, the two flamingos in love start glowing.” Cute! If you want to know what Viable are doing besides bird watching, check out their website!

MOST HEARTWARMING IDEA:
Lap Seat by Unit Sa-Shi-Su-Se-So (Student’s exhibition)

What might that supposed to be that for?

Now you know. Three availabale laps to sit on comfortable. Feels almost too real!

Try the Lap Seat by Unit Sa-Shi-Su-Se-So.

The student area - like every year - feels like a big playground, a trial and error platform of some truly fun ideas, some which look rather familiar or others which look far more professional than some of the stuff in the containers next to them… I smiled most at this heartwarming bench of 3 guys’ laps covered in authentic jeans. Especially moving when you see a group of 3 single ladies each sitting down, making a small sigh and then nod to one another. I suppose there is a market for those things…

BEST PUBLIC ART PIECE:
Hachiko (Student’s exhibition)

Choose if you want to be photographed with a light-blue, white or a pink Hachiko.

Hachiko - Tokyo’s most photographed statue, is an over-famous bronze dog waiting outside Shibuya station. Now some students gave the dog a new look, some color and even better: the possibility to have a famous Hachiko in every city around the world. These should definitely be mass produced!

MOST DECORATIVE:
Japanese patterns on working gloves by Cactus Design (Designboom Mart)

An artsy way to decorate working gloves with Kimono patterns.

Cactus Design Japan coated the gloves with white rubber textures.

See this lovely pair of solid working gloves too beautiful to use for gardening? These black gloves got their extra elegant touch by coating them with white rubber textures that resemble traditional Kimono prints, tribals or other Japanese style ornaments. Also nicely wrapped, the neatly sealed silver bag comes with a CD containing pictures and several print-outs in black and white getting into the total “designer working glove”-mood showing a big dreadlocked man wearing the gloves with quite a meditating expression. They must be ideal for yoga practicing, too then… Design and production by Cactus Design Japan, they also go under the Japanese name of Shin Nihon Gunte.

BEST KITCHEN-WARE:
1. Emanuel Babled’s frying pan (100% Design)

Deocrate your food with the funny tattoo fry-pan from Emanuel Babled.

Now here is what I missed all my life: tiny flowers on my omlette! If you want to impress your next guests, I highly recommend to get this easy to clean (one hopes) Teflon fry-pan called “tattoo” by Emanuel Babled.

BEST KITCHEN-WARE:
2. Lilliana Ovalle Piedra’s “Fuego Lento - Hot Pot Stand” (Design Tide)

Somehow awkward, this spiky hot pot stand clenches its teeth for your noodle pot.

Exhibited at the Talented - British Student Show 2006 at Paul Smith Space this is another fine product from the Royal College of Art: Lilliana Ovalle Piedra’s “Fuego Lento” is not for the sensitive persons amongst you. While officially expressing “fire” with her Hot Pot Stand, this stylish red kitchen accessory actually exhales humorous discomfort. Could these also be the bloody teeth of a greedy shark or the fleshy red gum of a nightmarish creature? Either way, this design item will entertain you before, during and after supper…

MOST RETRO:
Cassette tape wallets by Marcella Foschi (Designboom mart)

Marcella Foschi made these sweet remnants of the analogue tape age.

Italian designer Marcella Foschi sold these little wallets made out of old - foremost Italian - cassette tapes. Irresistibly nostalgic for anyone who grew up with chewed-up tape like me…

MOST HARD TO READ:
NOOKA wrist watches (Design Tide)

Simply gorgeous but hard to handle: NOOKA wrist watches.

NOOKA designer Matthew Waldman entertains the crowd at Design Tide.

This is definitely for people who do not simply want an easy wrist watch – too profane. It turns telling the time to an adventure for any NOOKA wearer, because you have to do more than just take a quick glance at your watch. Find out what time it is all about by calculating those scales and points indicated on your NOOKA glowing in the matching color to which ever model you chose. Matthew Waldman gave a funny bi-lingual speech at Design Tide about his precious (and a bit pricey) products - and the other stuff they do at NOOKA. Seems like a funny bunch to be with!

MOST KIDS’ FUN:
Toypography by DainipponTypeOrganization (Design Tide)


Toypography means putting together one word in English and in Kanji with the same little chumps. Sometimes you can even create the animal figure out of it.

DainipponTypeOrganization presenting at PechaKucha Night, Design Tide.

Here he explains a word play: they created an Ultramen out of many little Katakana reading “Da-Da” - to refer to the DADA art part in Japanese culture

Not only was the “Toypography” corner the best place for all design parents to hang out, these guys simply make amazing works with typography. Unfortunately almost impossible to translate their jokes into English since most of it is based on Japanese characters, DainipponTypeOrganization gave a fantastic speech at DesignTide’s PechaKucha Night last Friday. Respect for this excellent humor and typography skill!

MOST ADDICTIVE:
Shadow Monsters (Design Tide)

Shadow Monsters: Watch this amazing creatures evolve from processing

We already mentioned Philip Worthington’s “Shadow Monsters” in last weeks article, but thought we simply have to mention it once again, not only because we found this nice YouTube video explaining his work so well but simply because this processing installation is so addictive. People just spent hours in front of the projector watching their shaddow turn into monsters making the funniest noises….

MOST COLORFUL:
Blickfang exhibition (Design Tide inside Omotesando Hills)


The banal tourist t-shirt gets an upgrade at Blickfang fashion fair.

Bandages don’t have to look boring anymore. Spice up your injuries with a touch of pink and yellow, finishing off with silver design patches.

Eva Kim Heu makes elegant closely fitting hats that remind me of the Roaring 20s.

There were various exhibitions, of course, but Blickfang introducing furniture, fashion and jewellery design from Switzerland, Austria and Germany was probably the most colorful one. Interesting to see how these countries which usually try and hide their traditional roots (I guess every normal person would still be ashamed to wear a dirndl on the street…) now use these as strong influences in contemporary fashion.

BEST EXHIBITION:
D-BROS at Spiral Garden Aoyama Design Tide)


In case you forgot: Time is always running out and D-BROS act as your friendly reminder.

More clocks at Spiral Garden.

Even cobwebs and floral motives go nicely together on glass tables by D-BROS.

Old Dutch oil paintings used to give the viewer a little hint to remind them of the perishability of all worldly things. The Japanese D-BROS like to execute that on us today in a similar way: lots of clocks counting the lost minutes of our lives or carved cobwebs on glass tables demonstrating our rotten future - yet very elegant! All works by these graphic designers could be experienced at Spiral Garden.

BEST EVENT SPACE:
Su-per De-lu-xe


Performance & Live Paint: DoraVideo - amazing trash visuals and a drummer that beat the hell out of that venue! Loud and great!

DoraVideo VJs - nice outfits!

Shanteru and Marukwaka live painting at the Icon party

Well - there only seems to be one spot really where every evening has to end during Design Week and that would be SuperDeluxe! Highlight parties of the week were the Icon magazine party on Thursday (with two down-sides: a cute-only DJ girl ruined all possible atmosphere in the beginning and they censored the amazing Miss Apollo pole dancers this year… so some spice was missing) and the massive SuperDeluxe Anniversary and End-Of-Design-Week party on Saturday.

Saturday Night Party at Super Deluxe - Little Tokyo performing with world instruments and queeky-squirky e-guitar sounds

Japanese one-man-show: this performer was hillarious and his old school Japanese outfit was a truly nice match to these visuals

This half-naked woman was trapped inside this giant fish-bowl moving gently between those styrofoam pearls for 7 hours! What if she had to go to the toilet?

Missing Man Foundation performing

reminding me a little of Günther Schickert, this Japanese duo drifted into experimental sound space - beautiful!

For a visual journey of the entire Design Week, we recommend to check out our report-photos we uploaded to our Flickr page for you!

33 Comments

  1. [...] PingMag发表了一片关于东京设计周的总结性文章：Tokyo Design Week 2006 report，选择了一些BEST OF DESIGN WEEK，上图为MOST RETRO,由Marcella Foschi设计的磁带样子的钱包。 [...]

    Posted by: 东京设计节之最 · [ i D | 公 社] on November 10th, 2006 at 11:29 pm

  2. [...] Read it Filed under: Design, Japan   |   [...]

    Posted by: Tokyo Design Week 2006 Report « Kreativität direkt aus dem Keller on November 10th, 2006 at 11:48 pm

  3. [...] Pingmag have an excellent review of the fantastic looking Japan Design Week. So goods we thought we’d do our own… sadly, we couldn’t make it to Japan but we’ve got some exclusive images of work produced by Paul from Nanospore. [...]

    Posted by: Vinyl Abuse - Toy & Art Magazine on November 10th, 2006 at 11:57 pm

  4. Haha, Jeans Chairs, loved the idea!

    Posted by: Ben Tong on November 11th, 2006 at 1:30 am

  5. Tom Sachs had jeans/lap chair-like “sculptures” in his last show in NYC. His jeans were filled with concrete, though. Probably not that comfortable.

    Posted by: Mike Chiggins on November 11th, 2006 at 1:43 am

  6. Cool report, it really inspires me and hopefully many others as well. I’ve posted some of your photo’s on my blog, since I really wanted to pass this on to my readers (please give me a sign if you don’t appreciate)… Link: http://www.inspirationblog.nl/en/2006/11/inspiration_fro.html
    Also added a link to Pingmag earlier, since I find your whole blog/site very cool! :-)
    Thanks for the inspiration! Best regards, Eline

    Posted by: Eline Kwantes on November 11th, 2006 at 4:49 am

  7. Damit.
    Why i’m not working in Nihon?

    Posted by: Joe Cals Trogüell on November 11th, 2006 at 5:03 am

  8. huaaaaaaaaaah, why I missed it!???????? can somebody how to get there with no leave, no money and not time???or should I change my career………shit..

    Posted by: munchy on November 11th, 2006 at 4:36 pm

  9. Fantastic overview!

    Posted by: GK on November 12th, 2006 at 3:30 am

  10. I REALLLLLLLLY WANT A TAPE WALLET!

    Posted by: Badger on November 12th, 2006 at 7:39 am

  11. I picked up a pair of those gloves. What a steal at only 500 yen! I was actually shocked at how inexpensive they were.

    I would like to nominate as most flamboyant presenter the dude working the Furtueshorts container wearing the tophat and cravat. Very snazzy.

    Posted by: Josh on November 12th, 2006 at 11:04 am

  12. that spider + floral table rocks. really nice.

    Posted by: aaron on November 12th, 2006 at 8:48 pm

  13. Shadow Monsters was definiteley my favourite. I found a video shot at Design Tide that shows more of the new features:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2koOq3ZCVSo

    Posted by: Carsten on November 13th, 2006 at 4:49 pm

  14. [...] Tokyos lõppes disaininädal ja need, kel polnud aega sealt läbi astuda, saavad ülevaate veebist. Kirjutavad Pingmag ja Mocoloco: link1, link2, link3, link4 ja link5. Juuresoleval pildil on Max Lambi rannaliiva sisse valatud seatinast taburet. Sissekanne postitati 13. November 2006, kell 12:47. [...]

    Posted by: RUUM » Blog Archive » Tokyo disaininädal lõppes on November 13th, 2006 at 6:47 pm

  15. [...] En Pingmag podrán encontrar un review en inglés de la reciente semana del diseño realizada en Tokyo. [...]

    Posted by: » 100% Design Tokyo - Review on November 14th, 2006 at 8:09 pm

  16. 太牛了，如果能到中国巡回展一下，就好了！！！

    Posted by: kiplingdq on November 14th, 2006 at 9:06 pm

  17. [...] Early November, we saw Tokyo boiling with uncountable design events: during Design Week the latest designs from all over the world were showcased in Tokyo. Along with other events Swedish Style Tokyo has been held almost every year since 1999 and is certainly one - if not the - most popular of all events. Recent Swedish culture, design meetings and discussions, artists, DJs, chefs, furniture, funny Swedish ideas and their promoters…. everything Swedish seemed to gather in Tokyo. No wonder we got to meet so many Swedes in town all of a sudden! Here’s the report on this year’s Swedish Style Tokyo along with Sweden’s prod music label DNM (Dealers of Nordic Music) ultimate Nordic Lounge Radio Channel for BGM. [...]

    Posted by: PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about "Design and Making Things" » Archive » Swedish Style TOKYO 2006 on November 14th, 2006 at 9:57 pm

  18. very funky gloves no? kimono style and a bit indian henna tatoo like.

    Posted by: minako on November 16th, 2006 at 7:22 am

  19. Sorry, just want to correct a previous post: it was Rob Pruitt, not Tom Sachs, who had similar sculptures to the jeans chair. Check the link: http://www.gavinbrown.biz/shows/showspruitt.html

    Posted by: Mike Chiggins on November 17th, 2006 at 1:49 pm

  20. I want a white hachiko really bad!

    Posted by: JoeyM on November 17th, 2006 at 4:55 pm

  21. Any drunken designers in uncompromising positions like last year?

    Posted by: Billy on November 19th, 2006 at 12:46 am

  22. [...] Building blocks of international type = Toypography! via Ping Mag. [...]

    Posted by: Curious Brain » Blog Archive » typography block on November 21st, 2006 at 3:41 am

  23. [...] Glory of typography. Building blocks of international type = Typography! via Ping Mag. [...]

    Posted by: making » Blog Archive » typography block on November 21st, 2006 at 3:50 am

  24. [...] PingMag -Tokyo Design Week 2006 report Tokyo Design Week 2006 report [...]

    Posted by: BlogMyth|博客神话之设计类博客 » Archive » Links for 2006-11-10 [del.icio.us] on November 24th, 2006 at 12:33 am

  25. [...] Kiyoshi drew nice illustrations on an ashtray at DESIGN TIDE. [...]

    Posted by: PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about "Design and Making Things" » Archive » Kiyoshi Kuroda: “DISCOLOR” Exhibition on December 1st, 2006 at 11:29 am

  26. [...] Edward and Jay - what brought you to Japan at this time of the year? Just after all the “Design Week fuss”? [...]

    Posted by: PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about "Design and Making Things" » Archive » What makes a chair so special? BarberOsgerby! on December 4th, 2006 at 9:12 pm

  27. Woo!什么时候中国也能有那么好的展览呢？

    Posted by: angelwen1_0 on March 24th, 2007 at 7:39 pm

  28. 怎么越看越像当代艺术的展览

    Posted by: asisoon on July 9th, 2007 at 9:47 pm

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  30. [...] streets picking up some favourites. After his presentation of pictogram designs at last year’s DesignTide we knew he was the right man for the [...]

    Posted by:   Tokyo in pictograms by iconglobe on October 5th, 2007 at 2:39 am

  31. [...] PingMag发表了一片关于东京设计周的总结性文章：Tokyo Design Week 2006 report，选择了一些BEST OF DESIGN WEEK，上图为MOST RETRO,由Marcella Foschi设计的磁带样子的钱包。 [...]

    Posted by: 东京设计节之最 | 我的新鲜生活 on June 1st, 2008 at 8:14 am

  32. [...] PingMag发表了一片关于东京设计周的总结性文章：Tokyo Design Week 2006 report，选择了一些BEST OF DESIGN WEEK，上图为MOST RETRO,由Marcella Foschi设计的磁带样子的钱包。 [...]

    Posted by: 东京设计节之最 | 东南飞的个人博客 on July 2nd, 2008 at 7:11 pm

  33. [...] Tokyo Design Week Report - Allein die Fotos anzugucken ist schon ein Vergnügen! [...]

    Posted by: blogflow #6 | Web Produktmanagement on July 29th, 2008 at 6:42 am

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