the science of design: Japan

Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts

Kimiaki Yaegashi

http://www.okimi.com/

Kimiaki Yaegashi, aka Okimi, studied art at the University of Iwate. He works as a graphic designer and illustrator in Tokyo. Find more of his work at http://dailyvitamins.jp/, and follow him on Twitter / Flickr

Ikenaga Yasunari

1. 2007 #35 2. 2007 #28
3. 2009 #48 4. 2009 #52
5. 2009 #56 6. 2010 #57

http://www4.point.ne.jp/ikenaga/

—"The women he paints are fascinating and stoic. He creates his art by applying japanese paint into a linen canvas with a Menso brush. But, why does he paint Nihonga on the canvas? I have asked him before, but he didn't know neither. He is a very friendly guy but very quiet, though."—Japanese arts.
—Ikenaga Yasunari is a japanese painter born in 1965.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

http://www.sugimotohiroshi.com/

—People used to feel the light and how the light affected the surface of the object. The sky, lights from the window are constantly changing every second, every minute. So you really had to guess what was going to happen. You had to develop your own sense of the best balance of F-stop and shutter speed. I trained myself very well spending thirty years doing this. So the machine cannot measure some things, very intimate factors. What the early photographer gained from the study of nature, now people tend to rely on the computer or machines for. That’s not good enough. You need something more than that.

—I developed my own style of printing. I tested many different methods—Walker Evans’s method, Ansel Adams’s method. They used different kinds of formulas and chemicals. I spent quite a lot of time studying chemicals and how to develop large-format negatives. I also developed a sense to adjust the negatives. What kind of gray tone creates these nice gray tones? And what level of grayness makes black tones, not losing the medium tones, but extremely deep black? And then, highlights should be interesting but never washed out. There’s no pure white; there are always some tones there. Even in the deepest shadow, there’s a tone which is possible to print on the silver surface, but not in a catalogue. So this is about studying the silver reactions—and the colors of the metal as silver, and the surface of ink tones. The colors of the metal...silver metal, silver colors. That makes the tones of the images so rich. I’m a great fan of this process and the colors of silver—how to make as fine tones as possible, as a silver-print maker. So in that sense I am a very craft-oriented person. But at the same time, I want to make something artistic and conceptual. In general, you know, the post-modern artist never paid attention to craftsmanship. That’s something like a nineteenth-century cliché. But to me, I’m going the other way around. I really respect my craftsmanship and my hands. So even though I’ve lived in this postmodern time, I probably call myself a postmodern-experienced pre-postmodern modernist!

—When I was working on the architecture series I was actually photographing huge-scale architecture looking up from the ground level. I wanted to transfer this sense of seeing the building from the ground floor...It’s presenting some kind of taste and sense of the early-twentieth century. In "Seascapes," my subject matter is water and air.
—PBS interview.

Yoshimasa Tsuchiya

Deer, Blue mermaid and Unicorn. Woodcarving, polychrome, crystal.

http://yoshimasa-tsuchiya.net/

1977 Born in Kanagawa, Japan
2001 BA, Sculpture, Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo National University of Fine Art and Music
2003 MA, Conservation Course, Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo National University of Fine Art and Music
2007 Doctorate degree, Conservation Course, Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo National University of Fine Art and Music

via memelodia.

Kenichi Okada

Emotoscope, a digital camera with the feeling of the old films, with the clicking sound and the grainy images, to evoke nostalgia.

http://kenichiokada.com/

2006-08 MA Design Interactions Royal College of Art, UK
2004-06 BA GMD Interaction Design. London College of Communication, UK
1998-02 BA Department of Architecture. College of Engineering. Kanto Gakuin University, Japan

Ryuji Nakamura

1. Ribbon designed by mina perhonen /Living design gallery Nov 2008 /photo: ryuji nakamura
2. Jin's garden square nagoya-osu /Osu naka-ku nagoya aichi Dec 2007 /photo: daici ano
3. Aurora, fabric vip room for restaurant /Matsumoto nagano 2007 /photo: ryuji nakamura
4. Nami paper chair /Prismic gallery /Nov 2006 /photo: ryuji nakamura

Ryuji Nakamura is a Japanese architect, founder of the architects studio of the same name.
http://www.ryujinakamura.com/

Yoskay Yamamoto

http://yoskay.com/
http://yoskay.blogspot.com/

"Born and raised in Toba, Japan, Yoskay Yamamoto moved to the United States at the age of 15. A self-trained illustrator, Yamamoto's artistic tastes expanded as he fell in love with the urban culture of the West coast. Yamamoto discovered a way to fuse the two different cultural backgrounds together into his work. Yamamoto nostalgically blends pop iconic characters from his new Western home with traditional and mythical Japanese elements, balancing his Asian heritage with urban pop art."

Note: Originally there is a dress next to Hello Kitty. I removed it to focus on Yoskay's sculptural work. See the original image here and here.

Yumiko Kayukawa

Yumiko is a modern pop artist living in Sapporo, Japan. » http://www.sweetyumiko.com/ via tokyobunnie.

Masako Ando

1. Princess Diamond Princess Topasz, 2000. Dyptich/Right.
2. Dyptich/Left. Retouched.

http://www.tomiokoyamagallery.com/

Born in 1976 in Aichi, Japan. M.F.A. by the Aichi Prefectual University of Arts and Music.

The work of Masako Ando has a ephemeral quality to it and a delicate execution to match. Crowns of lace, feathers and candy like accessories perfect the fantasy. I retouched the black background in the bottom image to match the black in the top picture because the original has a slightly reddish black. Now the universe here remains to be the unattainable pinkish black.. which in turn reminds me of a very funny and clever Loriot sketch (in german) where he says his favorite color is gray, a greenish, reddish, brownish gray, but otherwise completely grayish gray.

via dontclickplz.

Hideaki Kawashima

Impossibility, 2008. Acrylic on canvas.

http://www.tomiokoyamagallery.com/

Born in Aichi, Japan in 1969. He graduated as a BA in 1991 from Tokyo Zokei University, Japan. His work has been published in Little Boy: The Arts Of Japan's Exploding Subculture and The Japanese Experience: Inevitable.

via madebysix.

Gaku Ohsugi

1. Masatex Japan Fabric Collection 2008
2. Futaki Knit "F"
3. The Viability of Peacok

http://www.702design.co.jp/

Born 1958 in Iwate Prefecture. Graduated a design professional school in 1989. His work has appeared in the fashion magazine Ryukou-Tsushin and in several films including Tampopo (1985).

via Luzhimian

Musubi Aoki 青木むすび

1-2- So-en magazine. Photo: Osamu Yokonami
3-5. So-en magazine. Art Director: Ryosuke Uehara, Photo: Sinichi Masumoto

The original and elaborated artwork of the creative director, prop stylist, and flower artist: Musubi Aiko.
http://musubi-musubi.net/

Tadashi Ueda

Fumio Watanabe