N O U N : A design blog by Oliver Oike

For centuries, the blooming of cherry blossoms (sakura) in Japan has held a near-magical significance, inspiring poetry, art, music, and kimono designs, while also symbolizing new beginnings. After the heavy grayness of a long winter, there is something about spring that warms the shoulders, lightens the step, brings a smile to the face, and makes [...]

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“…But ask a Japanese designer, and you’ll see good design through a different lens. For him, it means that a product has a high kansei value, or emotional and physical appeal to the user.”

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Fun, fun, fun Japanese goods shop… sections include Art, Fashion, Interior & Toys. “Tokyocube was founded in 2005, initially with the launch of the Tokyocube Magazine, which was designed to provide people throughout the world with a place to find features, articles and reviews on all the latest to come out of Japan, as well [...]

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Found this post full of  Japanese Type examples. Love it.

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Tokyo, October 1st, 2007 – Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization (JIDPO) announced today 1,043 items including the “best 15″ that were accredited by the 51st Good Design Award (the so-called “G-Mark”) You can also search the database for past winners.

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While browsing the Caina website (what a discovery!) this morning, I came across a very cool magazine, Casa Brutus. This month’s issue features “The Grand Tour with Tadao Ando.” Looks great! You can buy back issues here.

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“Tokyo – an ever-changing exiting city of the world. In this metropolis, stylish skyscrapers and gorgeous stores are born one after another without break and the city shows us various faces from time to time.Shop windows which color this theatrical city show us the trends of the time. They are fascinating, stimulating and shifting. Scenes [...]

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Wired.com reports on Issey Miyake’s recent Kyoto Prize (more here). The official Miyake site offers a lot of interesting interactive pieces (esp. here). I previously noted some of Miyake’s timepiece design here.

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These are fun, but serve as a reminder of my lack of Japanese language skills, despite my ethnic heritage. Sigh… some day!

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I missed this last year, but some great stuff. From the outline: “Japan Design: Good Design Award 50 Years is an exhibition produced by the Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Japan’s foremost design awards, the Good Design Awards (also called the G-Mark system). Since 1957, the Good Design Awards [...]

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Back in 1997, Wired ran a cover story about Apple’s demise, with only the word “Pray” set above an Apple logo surrounded by thorny wires. They had become a bloated, mis-led giant with little perspective of their customers, and they were sinking. For devoted Apple fans, it was depressing. Read it here. Well, now it [...]

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“The greatest form of education, whatever field it may be design, education, economics, science or what not, occurs when you have the fortune of meeting great people. Period. You will find great people by being earnest in your work, humble in attitude, and doing your best in all situations. You will find great people by [...]

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Muji, my favorite Japanese retail store that I’ve never been to, is holding a design contest. The theme is SUMI: corner / edge / end “The objective is not to design something that is placed in the middle of the room, but towards the edges, not at the centre and not directly around the centre; [...]

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“I tried to design a watch which is as simple and as strong as possible. I wanted to eliminate all markings, even numbers, from the face. This inspired me to give the crystal itself twelve sides ["A-ha!" - oo]. With the twelve angles of the case serving as the hour markers, I only had to [...]

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“In March this year, Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay plane that dropped the ‘Little Boy’ on Hiroshima was asked again whether he had any regrets. “Hell no, no second thoughts. If you give me the same circumstances, hell yeah, I’d do it again.“- and -”I only started speaking after I retired. It [...]

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“At 8:15 am on August 6th in 1945, the Atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. And on August 6th, 2005, at 8:15 in the morning, 60 years after the bomb , we will look back on what had happened on that morning and at the same time, we will think of the future. This project [...]

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