I found this catalogue showcasing the work of ceramicist Lucie Rie in Tsutaya the other day and was amazed. Her work is very beautiful and there seems to be a definite connection to Japanese ceramics although Issey Miyake claims in the introduction that Lucie Rie never visited Japan.
May 15th, 2009
Issey Miyake meets Lucie Rie
May 8th, 2009
Finding a Japanese match for Helvetica, pt. 1
Mixing Japanese and western characters is always tricky. Japanese fonts do include roman characters but they are never as well drawn as those of the classic western fonts, so what you tend to do is to mix fonts, trying to find a good match.
The most popular Japanese fonts for use in conjunction with Helvetica are probably Gothic MB101, Midashi Go MB31 and occasionally Chu Gothic BBB, all by the Morisawa font foundry. I would have to eliminate Chu Gothic BBB from the mix right away though as it is only available in one weight. This is true of Midashi Go MB31 too, but in this case it is the more useful bold weight as opposed to the regular, which I rarely use.
An alternative would be Kozuka Gothic which is included in Adobe’s Creative Suites. The roman characters don’t have much in common with Helvetica, but the Japanese characters are good. The same thing could be said of the AXIS font which is really nice overall, with a good balance between Japanese and roman characters – the roman ones again having little in common with Helvetica however.
In the end there is no right choice, it all comes down to taste, but I will follow up with a more detailed comparison in another post.
May 5th, 2009
Elizabeth Avedon
Always on the lookout for anything related to photographer Richard Avedon I stumbled upon this interview with Elizabeth Avedon, the designer who collaborated with him on some of his most memorable photo books.
Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? poses some interesting questions besides the obvious one of whether the painting bought by Teri Horton for $5 is an authentic Jackson Pollock worth millions. It also offers good insight into the business of art, turning her quest of verifying its authenticity into a struggle against what comes across as art-world snobbishness.
Do you value a throw-away by an artist the same way as a great work of art? Initial impressions are that the painting possesses none of the magical properties of an authentic Pollock.
May 2nd, 2009
Sato Hironobu
I think Sato Hironobu is one of the most talented photographers in Japan. He is also one of the nicest. We are both waiting for the right project to collaborate on.
