Dating back several hundred years, the Japanese bento box is as integral a part of the country’s culinary identity as sushi. Today, a contemporary version of the bento box exists, inspired by the rampant popularity of movies, television shows and manga. These charaben, made by parents (mostly mothers) eager to bring attention to their children’s lunch boxes, comprise food crafted into visually creative, appealing and recognizable forms, and are as much about planning and preparation as nutrition.

What better way to make children eat than to turn their midday meals into cartoon characters and video games? With Face Food: The Visual Creativity of Japanese Bento Boxes, writer and designer Christopher D Salyers documents the very real phenomenon of how rice, seaweed, mushrooms, tofu, hot dogs, fish cakes and just about any other edible delight you can imagine are shaped into the likes of Pikachu, Daraemon and Cinderella, bringing health, heart and imagination to the bento box, not to mention a bit of one-upmanship. A brief how-to guide, ingredient lists and interviews with charaben enthusiasts illuminate the many dynamic reasons behind this wholly Japanese pursuit.

As Salyers writes: “There is something marvelous and enchanting in charaben, a something we should all look to find within ourselves - a convalescence of youth. For all of you who have ever eaten or prepared a slap-dash PB&J sandwich, or have been victim of school cafeterias, I offer up these pages as proof that when you show this much dedication to what you or your child eats, the end result will be nothing short of astounding.”

If you have never seen or tasted charaben, Face Food will open a whole new world to you, proving once again how the visual can say so much about a culture and its practices.

A variation on marbled paper is paste paper. In this technique, a layer of starch is applied to blank paper, and paint is added on top of it. The design is produced by manipulating the paint with a brush or scraper, or with the help of stamps or rollers. Japanese Papers includes an extensive and rare selection of such designs. This book also contains stunning examples of other Japanese paper decoration techniques, such as block printing and the application of design during the actual paper-making process.

Agile Rabbit Editions contain stunning images for use as a graphic resource, or inspiration. All the illustrations are stored in high-resolution format on the enclosed free CD-ROM and are ready to use for professional quality printed media and web page design. The pictures can also be used to produce postcards, or to decorate your letters, flyers, etc. They can be imported directly from the CD into most design, image-manipulation, illustration, word-processing and e-mail programs; no installation is required. For most applications, single images can be used free of charge. Please consult our section on image rights for conditions.

 

Exploding with eye-popping originality and freshness, today`s best Japanese graphics have been gathered together to make this must-have guide to contemporary aesthetics in Japan. With their unique perspective, the Japanese have a way of looking at the world that has long been a source of great interest for the Western mind.

Here, Japan`s most talented creative professionals strut their stuff in the form of posters, advertisements, print media, visual identity, and print design. Divided into chapters by media type, this highly visual guide presents a diverse selection of graphics and includes an index of designers, complete with website addresses and contact information.

Fans of Japanese culture and aesthetics will revel in this inspirational book packed cover-to-cover with full page color photos of a wide range of homes and buildings across the islands of Japan, from traditional tatami to modern minimal. Beginning with a section on exteriors, replete with tranquil zen gardens, the book segues into interiors and ends with photos of details, giving readers a wellspring of ideas and the distinct sense that they have been briefly transported to the Land of the Rising Sun.

Everyone will think they’re turning Japanese with this up-close look at the hippest lounge designs in the world’s hippest country. These bars, lounges, cafes, and teahouses feature the latest in glam lighting, sensuous styling, and experiential drama. Stunning full-color photographs let designers, sophisticated clubbers, and fans of Japanese pop culture enter the world of trendy lounging.

Uber-modern lighting, Zen design sensibilities, fantasy private dining...these are just some of the oh-so-cool ideas for cutting-edge restaurant design featured in Hip Dining. This showcase of the newest, hottest, and hippest in the field is packed with inspiring ideas for creating innovative, witty dining spaces that will enhance any meal and enthrall any guest.

 

With intricate designs sweeping the length of the body, Japanese kimonos are truly wearable art. In a celebration of the patterns and motifs adorning the traditional costume, 30 ready-to-color illustrations present kimono-clad figures awash in cherry blossoms, bamboo, stately birds, flowing streams, and wandering abstracts.

Called tsubo-niwa after a unit of measurement that is two person-sized tatami mats placed side by side, the pocket garden has been a part of the Japanese architectural canon for thousands of years. Undergoing a modernization in the last few decades in which a new generation of architects began experimenting with the concept in imaginative ways, the contemporary garden follows a distinct yet global aesthetic, whether as an urban solution to importing nature, as an individual theme set within a larger garden space, or as a buffer between property lines of a house or apartment. Beautifully illustrated and designed with a reflective, contemplative aesthetic, the book offers a broad array of miniature garden designs, including Keno Kuma’s explorations of materials as diverse as andesite and plastic, Takeshi Nagasaki’s art installation gardens with stepping stones of cast glass and bronze, and Yasuhiro Harada’s mobile cube gardens—plantings in stainless-steel trays on wheels that can be stacked and rearranged at will.

The Japan Package Design Association was founded in 1960 and is authorized by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. JPDA is a private organization that represents the field of the package design in Japan.

 

The object of JPDA is to enrich daily life and culture and to foster industry through improvement, promotion, and education for package designing.

 

In this book you will find the best packaging creations in Japan.

A book featuring recent projects by architects and interior designers who have been drawing attention not only in Japan, but internationally. Masaaki Takahashi has selected 21 of Japan's top architects and designers, presenting their most recognised and latest work to demonstrate their individuality and style. Young, promising architects and designers are also featured, including a handful not born in Japan, but who have made Japan their home. 

 

Takahashi asks each architect and interior designer questions about their design philosophy, with a particular emphasis on why they became interior designers and architects. 

 

This unique book features striking visual layouts, and information that should appeal to anyone with an interest in the fusion of architecture and interior design in the world today.