Mobile Flash Art: cellphone as artistic platform

29 Nov 2006 Category: Features, Illustration, Japan, Recommended, Street Art, Technology, Top Page 10

Mobile Flash Art: cellphone as artistic platform

Kawai! Little jumping penguins from artist Taka designed for your mobile screen – thanks to FlashLite art.

If you think of the mobile business - in terms of content most of it is - well - commercial, of course. But as with any business there is always a niche that finds its way and manages to avoid using it as a mere platform for marketing and selling content. One thing you might know for example is that in Japan you can easily watch NHK (national TV) on your mobile.

Written by Verena

But you might not expect that a cell pone can become a creative playground for designers, illustrators or animators: a platform for visual expression, though somehow small in size.

Up until now most people are used to take pictures with their mobile camera and use that as wallpaper. Thanks to FlashLite – an application that does all sorts of animated magic and is now so common on Japanese gadgets – artists take over this tiny screen and create their version of an animated wallpaper, screensaver or calendar. Or they even create designs for the menu trying to find new ways of customizing the mobile user interface.

What could that possibly look like? Here are some examples. PingMag talked to Tokyo-based Mao Sakaguchi about his mobile art project called Gendai Geijutu Hakurankai.


Gendai Geijutu Hakurankai’s website from a cellphone perspective.

Compared to other countries mobile entertainment is definitely huge in Japan. Meaning, in addition to using the phone solely for information or business matters there is a constant need here for new wallpaper designs and other forms of customization.

Mao: I just read the other day that the average high-school girl in Japan spends around 15 000 yen per month for mobile content. (about 99 Euro or 127 Dollars!). So if there is such a demand – why not making art for the tiny screen and show the kids that there’s more in it!

This April Mao’s newly founded project Gendai Geijutu Hakurankai started collecting Japanese illustrators, graphic designers, street artists or character designers to make cute little animated interfaces. Nevertheless it had taken him six months before he managed to convince the content provider GignoSystem Japan to engage in his mobile art collection.

Mao Sakaguchi checking designs by various artists on his mobile phone

Let’s take a visual walk then through his Gendai Geijutu Hakurankai project or this website and browse the list of currently 20 artists via the mobile. Mao found most of them through his exhibit space in his BBS TOKYO store, run by the designer clothing chain HP France and the New Yorker drum&bass shop Breakbeat Science.

Although many of the artists originated from illustration or street art they nevertheless liked to engage in FlashLite, too. However, there are still a lot of traditional ‘analogue’ artists Mao would like to convince to have a go in the world of mobile animation.

Baku’s Jang Ken Pong! as a mobile animation.

Mao: I want more collaborations between traditional drawing or painting artists and Flash people. At the moment we use Mixi to build up a private social network between artists of different genres and encourage them to exchange their art and improve the designs.

Here is a small selection of all the amazing mobile art created for Mao’s project:

Minimal graphics by Sapporo-based Baku Maeda: the illustrator and character designer made a cute little Jang Ken Pong! screensaver (the equivalent to the Western paper-scissor-stone game). He shows his stylistic variety moreover with cute geometric shapes, on the other hand he designs jagged screen menus (see further below).


Baku

the characteristic torn pandas from Nagi Noda found their way to the mobile

Kiyoshi Kuroda is active in both: commercial design and art. He recently did a live painting at Design Tide and on December 2nd you can watch him draw delicate ornaments during the opening of his solo exhibition at Nanzuka Underground.

Kiyoshi Kuroda

Ogi Graphics

Kenji Matsuda

Now there’s someone that brought the It! Girl to the mobile screen: After studying in the US, Ogi Graphics combines Graffiti with collage-like drawings of cool women. Furthermore he is designing toys.


JYNX

Another artist that designs tastefully for the tiny little screen is Kenji Matsuda: His mixture of photographs with graphics or ilustrations match the simple dashes and dabs of paint. Often he uses strong colours like black, white and yellow, as you can see below in his floral girl illustration.

JYNX is yet one more Graffiti artist that delightfully transfers street art into colourful paintings, e.g. an animated screensaver.

Baku Maeda was already featured earlier. Here he shows his funny new interface designs based on the idea “Why not turn the banal menu options of your phone into cute little boxes?”


Baku’s menu design

Shunsuke Kanosue’s interface

Shunsuke Kanosue aka The 7th Brother – the animation director and motion graphic artist explores new ways of mobile interface design. For him a mobile menu is not just a simple user interface. His stylized version of grass has menu options represented by hopping rabbits, all embedded in a strong colour arrangement of black and green.


Another menu from Shunsuke Kanosue.

Camouflage by Shunsuke Kanosue

Pushing away the usual “based on grind”- menue structure Shunsuke Kanosue creates interfaces in an intuitive freestyle design. He positions the menu options freely on an animated scenery, a tree with deer moving in the back.

For another menu , he chose a camouflaged surface that reveils the option if you move the pointer over each item. Check out his website to see the animations in action.


MHAK!!

Graphic designer MHAK!! does also a lot of live painting and Graffiti style. His animated wallpaper with delicately falling leaves for the autumn season was quite popular recently. It is a lovely combination of fragile flower patterns with dynamic Graffiti letters that serve more than an ornamental décor.

Famous for his use of rainbow colours or hip portraits of people with huge Afros: GEWGAW comes from street art and also likes to embark with minimalistic colours, like his screensaver showing the time surrounded by a vast industrial shore.


GEWGAW

Keita Takano

Keita Takano loves the little greedy monsters in a colourful setting, something of which you would never get tired of looking at on your little screen.

It is really worth taking a look Mao’s other great street artists that enrich your mobile screen, like the magnificent Kanako Anamachy or Ryo Ono.

Thank you Mao Sakaguchi for showing us what can be done in terms of mobile Flash art!

29 Comments

  1. thank you very much!!! i ve saved all and prepare to add some color and fun for my little hand phone!!

    Posted by: munchy on November 30th, 2006 at 12:33 am

  2. Since my Japanese is still poor, though I live in Tokyo, I had no idea that a cool service like this exists! Thanks for giving little pleasure to me everytime I take my mobile phone out.

    Posted by: puri on November 30th, 2006 at 2:20 am

  3. [...] Un petit post léger ce soir pour relever les projets de graphistes au Japon sur mobile. Le principe est simple “une lycéenne peut payer jusqu’à 100 euros par mois pour du contenu sur mobile”, il y a donc une ouverture. Le marché de la personnalisation de téléphone marchait déjà plutôt bien, mais des designers commencent à s’y pencher et à explorer les possibilités. Certains s’orientent vers la technologie Flash Lite pour animer le tout. (il y a un Jan Ken Pong! sympa, “pierre ciseaux feuille”, quoi…). Posté le novembre 30th, 2006 | [...]

    Posted by: Hebi Flash Blog » Le mobile comme support artistique au Japon on November 30th, 2006 at 8:29 am

  4. keitai no imagi no tame yaritai !! mini noise, mini gifs, mini loops, mini clips, mini coktails, mini eyesu…

    kiss

    Posted by: Aï-Hz on November 30th, 2006 at 10:28 am

  5. -_- link link

    Posted by: Aï-Hz on November 30th, 2006 at 10:30 am

  6. Hey, my name is paul, tattoo artist from louisiana, degree in fine arts from the university of louisiana, i was wondering if you where up for any types of collaborations coming up in the future. I have pictures of my artwork and Im always working on new stuff, I just want to get my work out into the world and let them see where Im coming from and what Im trying to get across, hope to talk to you soon.

    thanks, paul

    Posted by: Paul Roberts on November 30th, 2006 at 12:06 pm

  7. Crazy man! Everything are becoming art… which is a cool thing! :-P

    Posted by: Ben on November 30th, 2006 at 12:31 pm

  8. [...] An article in Pingmag by Verena showing how mobile screen can be a site for creative artworks. Oiwan Lam [...]

    Posted by: Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Japan: mobile flash art on December 1st, 2006 at 2:24 pm

  9. Thats awesome!

    Posted by: Dimitry on December 2nd, 2006 at 12:34 am

  10. [...] [...]

    Posted by: Scott Janousek » Blog Archive » Mobile Flash Art: cell phone as artistic platform on December 2nd, 2006 at 7:23 am

  11. The article is great, and the links very interesting… (despite I tend to get lost on them because I am clueless about Japonese). By the way, I have seen in a couple of places a strange black & white icon: http://web.peex.jp/gengei/archives/images/qr.gif
    Does anybody knows what it is?

    Posted by: xmanoel on December 2nd, 2006 at 11:26 pm

  12. [...] with a very nice article about art and phone UI Here are some examples: [...]

    Posted by: Everything and the Mobile Software Universe… » A must read: :: mobiface :: next gen mobile interface thoughts on December 3rd, 2006 at 7:52 am

  13. The ones by Ogi Graphics and Kenji Matsuda are beautiful!

    Posted by: Lu on December 11th, 2006 at 3:15 am

  14. Great article, thanks so much for sharing.

    Posted by: Bill Perry on January 3rd, 2007 at 7:58 am

  15. …really great!

    Posted by: Leonardo Risuleo on January 4th, 2007 at 1:41 am

  16. [...] As Scott pointed it out before, Jonh Nack found this nice article about Flash Lite mobile art being used as screensavers and animated wallpapers in Japan. [...]

    Posted by: Luciano Ayres :: Adobe Flash Lite Instructor on January 5th, 2007 at 1:36 pm

  17. [...] (via Bill Perry) - a link to an article from Japan (English version or Japanese version) about artists who are designing visually stunning wallpapers, screensavers and menus using Flash Lite. It’s a good news to know that even designers and “pure” illustrators are seeing in Flash Lite a useful expressing tool.. In linked post you can find a lot of cool contents. If you think of the mobile business - in terms of content most of it is - well - commercial, of course. But as with any business there is always a niche that finds its way and manages to avoid using it as a mere platform for marketing and selling content. One thing you might know for example is that in Japan you can easily watch NHK (national TV) on your mobile. [...]

    Posted by: .byte-sm’s blog - Leonardo Risuleo » Cell phone as artistic platform on January 6th, 2007 at 12:08 am

  18. [...] Source: PingMag [...]

    Posted by: WirelessDuniya » Blog Archive » Mobile Flash Art: cell phone as artistic platform on January 13th, 2007 at 11:01 pm

  19. [...] Den foregående uges nyheder fra mobilfronten har i allerhøjeste grad været dikteret af en lille gadget annonceret af Steve Jobs fra Apple. Vanen tro lægger Steve Job ikke fingrer imellem, når han proklamerer et Apple-produkt, og ret hurtigt dukkede der da også en video op, der demonstrerede de mange features, der følger med en iPhone. Selvom iPhone virker interessant, finder jeg det mere imponerende, hvordan Apple har formået at holde dens to et halvt år lange udvikling skjult for offentligheden. En mindre, men stadig velkommen nyhed, kommer fra Yahoo. De har lanceret servicen Yahoo Go, der består af en række widgets såsom Flickr, ruteplanlægning og naturligvis en email-klient der fungerer i sammenspil med Yahoo mail. Desuden er der kommet en del nyheder fra Japan. Blandt andet skal den Japanske regering i gang med at bygge et system, der ved hjælp af mobiltelefoner kan lokalisere børns position. Ængstelige forældre kan derved få en sms, hvis deres barn befinder sig i en ”farlig” zone eller andre forbudte områder. At en regering får lov til sådan former for overvågning virker en smule foruroligende. En gennemsnitlig high school pige i Japan bruger 127 dollars på indhold til sin mobiltelefon. Ja, 127 dollars. Det åbner dørene for en række nicheprodukter, hvor ét af dem er kunstneriske baggrundsbilleder og animerede pauseskærme, der giver pigerne mulighed for at individualisere udseendet af deres mobiltelefon. [...]

    Posted by: BitingBits - Fokus paa mobile indholdstjenester on January 15th, 2007 at 5:56 am

  20. [...] * Creating digital artwork for display on cellphones using Flash Lite. [...]

    Posted by: spiral hive » Blog Archive » PingMag - a blog about design on February 19th, 2007 at 6:46 am

  21. Hi,
    We are a 3D Animation producer in China
    We can give you a competitive price
    see the attadhed
    Pls give us your feedback if you are interested in our
    products.

    http://www.dgduoduo.cn
    Thanks,
    Gordon
    Our mission is to produce High quality and Cost effective.

    Posted by: Gordon on March 18th, 2007 at 5:35 pm

  22. Its really Nice Work!! Keep It up. Good Going

    Posted by: john hank on April 12th, 2007 at 4:01 pm

  23. Nunihuia! and-here

    Posted by: Estefania Sanchez on April 12th, 2007 at 9:50 pm

  24. This one makes sence “One’s first step in wisdom is to kuesstion everything - and one’s last is to come to terms with everything.”

    Posted by: Iris Tomlin on June 14th, 2007 at 5:33 pm

  25. Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! dqzdwzxeelork

    Posted by: qusgtrivaa on June 20th, 2007 at 12:05 am

  26. Zpr/ead Bakteria Tr{ou}gh AiR
    proto/celular/

    http://www.bakteria.org/proto/celular/

    Posted by: arkteria on September 6th, 2007 at 5:25 am

  27. hello,
    I am an international artist
    would like to preswent my artwork
    hope you like
    http://www.beyondthelimitsofimagination.com

    Posted by: Ronny Haklay on December 18th, 2007 at 11:00 am

  28. [...] to Pingmag, not only Japenese readers can get information about it. Check the article Mobile Flash Art: cellphone as artistic platform for an interview with [...]

    Posted by: Art in Mobile » Blog Archive » Pingmag writes about Gendai Geijutu Hakurankai on April 28th, 2008 at 11:09 pm

  29. [...] Flash Lite became art playground for many creative Japanese artists. Check out great article at PINGMAG e-magazine“…. [...]

    Posted by: kandaka » Mobile Flash Art on November 12th, 2009 at 10:49 pm

  • Share and Enjoy:
  • del.icio.us
  • digg
  • Fark
  • NewsVine
  • RawSugar
  • Reddit
  • YahooMyWeb
Previously on PingMag