Shopping Alley in Shinjuku

Daruma Dolls

End of Year Sales Campaign

Just walking

Christmas day is almost here and I am excited to go home to Tokyo. I really want to see the Isetan Department Store window display in person before it gets changed after Dec. 25. After being in a class about Exhibit Design, I’ve become especially interested in window displays. The Isetan windows currently show scenes from a Christmas story, illustrated by Finnish illustrator Klaus Haapaniemi. There is even a website that goes along with the store windows, but this is only viewable until Dec. 25th as well. Please hurry to take a look. It takes viewers through various scenes of the enchanting story.

As fall is transitioning into winter, the days are getting shorter and chillier. The other day, from our studios in the Design Center at school, the sky became a beautiful watercolor paintings of oranges and yellows. Just yesterday, Providence saw the first morning of snow.

Now with only a week left in the semester, I’m really busy with finals and getting all process work organized. It feels like an endless cycle of building models, sitting by the computer, finishing details, making back up, photographing and staying up late into the nights. Just…a…little….bit….more!

Here is another update on the funny Tokyo Metro Manner posters from their website. The make-up one is from November, and the drunkenness poster went up today. As the holiday season rolls around, let’s hope for good public behavior.

One of the best things about this chilly autumn season is going to see the Halloween Midnight Organ Concert at Brown University. I look forward to it every year. About 20 minutes before midnight, the dark Sayles Hall got crowded with students starting to sit/ lie down with pillows and blankets for the late night musical treat. Many were dressed in costume- I saw a Rubic’s cube and several Where’s Waldos. At the strike of midnight, zombie looking creatures came in though the main doors carrying a coffin- out from which rose Dracula (Mark Steinbach), who laughed menacingly before climbing the stairs to play the organ. What followed was a spooky Halloween- classical concert. In the middle of the event, some of the zombie “tomb kickers” rocked it out, singing the Monster Mash song. This is surely the best part of Halloween!

This last weekend I got to participate in a design/innovation conference put together by RISD and Brown students, called A Better World by Design. This conference’s goals included bringing together a global community of innovators to the city of Providence, and to reach across different design fields, different cultures, and different ideas to unite under a common goal of making the world a better place. Spreakers shared inspiring stories, workshops gave helpful informations, and panel sessions opened up discussions.

The conference lasted 3 days, from last Friday to Sunday, and took place between the two school campuses. Speakers included Jan Chipcase, Teddy Cruz, William Drenttel, Vivian Loftness, and John Maeda, among many others. Though I still had classes to attend and homework to get done, I did my best to go to as many events as I could. I enjoyed the panel discussions best, where 4-5 speakers would open a dialogue on a particular subjects. Panel sessions I attended were about Information Design, Graphic Design and Business, and about Design and Activism. Though most of our school lives, we focus on our individual work in our majors, it was inspiring to see and listen to people from all sorts of disciplines. I learned a lot from these sessions, and became inspired to try to help the world with my own skills too. It is really important in this age to address and actively engage in design, technology, and enterprise to reshape our communities and work for our environment.

The following images are from the photo flickr pool for this conference.

In the auditorium at the first speaker session- I’m near the stairs with the beige and black shirt.

Design and Activism panel