You know this familiar situation: every time you visit an office, you are curious to see how creative folks and artists actually work; how your dream job’s desktop would look like… Creative inspirations cluttered all over or structured order of mind on a neat desktop? Out of curiosity, we randomly sent an e-mail to people we’ve interviewed before, to friends and others asking, “Can I see your desk?” Guess how many we have received! Interestingly, most answers arrived from United Kingdom and Japan. In honour of UK-JAPAN 2008, the British year in Japan, we hereby hold the Japan vs. UK: PingMag’s Desk Project! Let’s peep at various desks of Brits and Japanese working in the creative industry.
Written by Chiemi
Translated by Junko
A graphic designer’s desk: fashionable and beautiful!
When we hear a designer or an art director’s desk, we naturally imagine fashionable, beautifully designed desk. London-based Pete Hellicar has a bright yellow desk, which his friend found in New York and was shipped to London. He says that he’s borrowed it and has been so happy to be able to use such a wonderful desk! Here is a message from Pete, “Thanks Sara x!”
Japanese graphic designer, Tsuyoshi Kusano, has sent us a beautiful photo, saying “unfortunately (?) it’s been too clean lately.” Oh yes, it does look like a photo from image bank:
The desk of art director Pete Hellicar. The skateboard and picture on the wall were made by his friends, Simon True and Pete Fowler.
Tsuyoshi Kusano’s well-organised desk. You can see its “messy” version from the past over at Flickr.
Nearly two years ago, we introduced you already to London-based graphic designer duo Hudson-Powell. Now, they use a desk together! The stuff on the shelf looks pretty interesting but their answer to our question, “What is special about your desk?” was “The light and people we share it with.” Nice comment!
Matt Pyke from Universal Everything based in Sheffield, UK, is a former member of The Designers Republic. This innovative creator uses a beautiful desk – makes you feel like you are in a model apartment…!
Another former member of The Designers Republic, David Bailey of Kiosk, uses a white desk with funky yellow and blue coloured pop chairs. A nice accent to the pure white of the desk!
British Airside does loads of fun stuff. Their studio manager Emma feels that ‘she is important’ whenever she sees the gold Manager sticker on her computer!
David’s desk… He has a lot of interesting works from 2D to 3D. And it’s neat!
Full of toys! The desk of Emma from Airside looks quite fun! You also can see Airside’s PR lady, Anne, and her desk from over at Ping Flickr.
Our next nice, comfortable desk is owned by Anna Fidalgo of Antidote. What a cute desktop picture and some windows with a very British scenery over the computer. She thinks her desk is special because “It is big enough to allow me to hoard and collect rubbish that I value highly.“ We’re in for that too!
Art director Rupert Smyth of Anonsoc is based in London and Berlin. He uses a desk he made by himself according to a plan by designer Enzo Mari. He does a lot of things related to bands such as Primal Scream, so the record sleeves with which he is actually working serve as a nice accent to his very orderlydesk.
Looking at these beautiful, well-organised desks, you might be feeling guilty comparing them to yours by now… Don’t worry! Beeny Royston of Real Curious, working both as actor and designer, has sent this manly desk in a sense:
Game creator’s fun-fun-fun desk
Brighton-based viral marketing agency, Kerb, handles online games and such. We’ve received pictures of five members’ desktops – thank you so much! This time, we show only one of them, the desk of senior illustrator Zeb Macgann.
Filmmaker meets retro
“Filmmaker” sounds like he or she works in an aseptic space such as server room handling mass data… Making his films under the name of James Price & Lenka Clayton, James uses an old desk he took over from his great-aunt who died at the age of 91 in 2003. Interestingly, their work bears the same kind of atmosphere as his antique desk does.
An artist’s desk: or rather a worktable
Working with photos and printed things, Brede Korsmo and Luke Frost managed to put an uncountable number of images around their desk! Are the two ties on the wall for some occasional, important meetings?
Gendaibijutsu Nitouhei create modern art adding their special humour. Since the two work separately in Tokyo and Osaka, they’ve sent us pictures from each studio. Katsuhito Fujiwara mostly works, sitting in front of the telly, so this desk is mainly for painting his work. He’s been trying to make it look better with storage style furniture because the spray booth easily gets ugly. However, he often makes his cat angry because he uses its door for ventilation…
You might find it familiar to see some goods on the desk of another member of Gendaibijutsu Nitouhei, Shane Kagotani. According to him, the best part around his desk is a “Winnie the Pooh” printed curtain which he inherited from an ex-resident!
Artist Rick Myers is based in Massachusetts, U.S., and Manchester, England, and sent us various photos: he often changes all the stuff on his desk depending on the content of his work, and still all the photos look different and pretty interesting…
An interaction designer’s desk: power supply required!
United Visual Artists (UVA) had a chat with PingMag before and just they showed their remarkable piece of work in the opening event of “UK-JAPAN 2008“. So, what does UVA’s Interaction designer Joel have on his desk?
Japanese artist, Yumiko Tanaka, graduated from RCA and now works in London also as an interaction designer, same as Joel. The sound of interaction designer might give you an impression of something technical or tough, so this feminine mood with the pink wall would be far from what you would imagine. She says, “This wall in front of the desk cheers me up a lot.”
Music industry people’s desk: CD, computer, etc.!
The environment of music industry people is quite mysterious to people who are involved in art and design. Simon from Coalition is a manager of CSS from Brazil or London-based band Blocparty. He is often out of town on a tour with his bands, thus his desk is kept very organized!
Neil, working for Southern Records, has been dealing with mail orders from all over the world, and fights with mass information everyday. Thanks to those who try to answer our order as soon as possible to make us happy, we can get our favorite CDs in our hands so sooner.
Illustrator’s desk: a harmony of Hand-writing and Mac
A black line in an innocently white background… Japanese illustrator Kiyoshi Kuroda – whom you’ve met before – invents such beautiful work. If you talk to him in person, you find yourself surprised how much his personality, works, and desk has completely the same atmosphere…
Formally in London and now a Tokyo-based illustrator, Hidetoshi Yamada uses this desk. Sufficient depth which allows putting both a computer and many brushes in bottles on it. It’s not difficult to picture him drawing in a lot of sunshine, and having a nice cup of coffee…
Atsushi Toyama always draws something heart-warming. Last year he moved away from Tokyo and now he is living in an old temple in a country side of Aichi prefecture. It sounds nice and peaceful, but in fact… “I found a hole big enough for a human to crawl in under my desk when I moved in. I am too scared to find out what is inside, and have just put a canvas to cover the hole…” Anyone who is brave enough to inspect inside, let us know!
Editor’s desk: always chaos!
The last one is of Kana from white-screen.jp web magazine. Her comment along with her picture is, “The person in the blue clothes is Karl Hyde!”… OK, but where is that photo, Kana…??
We really appreciate all of your cooperation! Thank you so much! Check out the whole photograph series of PingMag’s Desk Project on Flickr. Also, if you want to show your desk, you are most welcome to write a comment, and include the URL of your desk page.
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