As mentioned recently, I served as a judge and on the editorial committee for this year’s Asia Pacific Design Awards. The books that serve as the repository of all of the winning work came in the other day and are currently being distributed to the prospective winners.

These books are massively heavy- if dropped from shoulder height, you could very easily crush a small mammal. If you were to do this, however, you’d stain the beautiful embossed fabric-bound hardcover binding and potentially mar the gleaming gold-leafed docked edges of the pages. This is decidedly not a modest book – it is a celebration of the best that Asian graphic design has to offer at present, and via page count, bespoke material choices and the sheer quality of work within, celebrates it in style.

The official blurb about the Awards:

As a top representative of graphic design in Asia-Pacific region, APD collects excellent graphic designs from Asian countries or regions and those along Pacific Ocean. APD aims at promoting design in Asia-Pacific Region and providing good opportunities for excellent designers to stand out. It is the seventh volume this year in 2011. APD No. 7 continuously follows the publishing concept of original design and collects more excellent graphic designs. Putting outstanding designs on display, APD forges an interactive platform for exchanges and communication within the circles. It covers seven categories, respectively, visual identity, orientation system, type, poster, packaging, print, logo and graphics & extended product.

My choices for some of the top Japanese graphic design projects of the year included work by:

AQ
Benjamin Thomas / Bentographics
HeiQuiti Harata
Yoshihisa Shirai

Congratulations to the Award winners this year. You all do such beautiful, thoughtful work.

You can read more about the awards and order the book here.

I co-edited two small essays in issue #350 of Idea- one on the history of the Japanese fashion and lifestyle magazine An-An and another on former Idea editor Toshiaki Koga’s recent event “Approaches to What?”.

The new logo and identity for PechaKucha‘s Global Cities Week launched yesterday. It’s a week-long celebration of the cities that host PechaKucha Night events all over the world.

I’ll be doing a casual presentation on lettering that I spotted around Cuba during my recent trip to the place where Americans aren’t supposed to go this Wednesday at PechaKucha Night Tokyo.

Last year I collaborated with Dwayne Dixon on creating a video framework to be used for Duke University’s video modules for training students in ethnographic fieldwork. Dwayne has gone through and filled out all of the modules into a comprehensive series of training videos to help students understand the ethical conduct of research with human subjects. Giant thanks to Dwayne, Lorna and the rest of the Duke team!

Client Little Bird, a bistro in Portland, Oregon, just got a swell writeup in the New York Times. See it here.

I wrote the introduction essay “Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down” for the new book Big Brand Theory, published by Sandu Media and Gingko Press. Check it out here and here.

Tokyo Fashion Week branding now out in the world!

Just finished a slew of new book cover designs for Microcosm- first, the cover for Joe Biel’s new book of interviews Beyond The Music.

Next is a redesign of the cover for Stephen Duncombe’s seminal Notes from Underground.

Final is Joey Torrey’s Bamboozled.

New: Collaborative redesign of Tokyo club SuperDeluxe’s website with CPOS, running on their bespoke CMS.