design in daily life

UNIQLO updated the website on March 23rd.

New website has 2 features.
First, the websites were simplified and became more useful to buy. You has been able to see styling now and then. In addition, you can see the detail of products in a original way. The way is comfortable and unique.

Second, Unifying these website in the world. UNIQLO websites were different in each countries. However, The design are unified now.

Yugo Nakamura designed these website, he is one of the most interesting talents of today’s digital design. Kashiwa Sato is one of the designers in the team. He is one of my favorite art directors. You can see his work on the book, “gggBooks 67-KASHIWA SATO-“.

UNIQLO http://www.uniqlo.com/

kazuya webdesign uniqlo

Kunie Kanbara is one of my favorite illustrators in Japan. She mainly draw profile angle of girl. When I saw her illustration at first, the illustration was drawn on CD jacket, “Organic Plastic Music” by orange pekoe. Then, I was so inspired. (After that she drow some pictures for CD Jackets of orange pekoe.)

Today, I want to introduce you her illustration book, “RESET“. Each pages make me happy. Flowing hair on the picture let us feel wind and confortable atomosphire. And you can see some girls in kimono in the book, too. Whenever you see her picture, you’ll be relax.

In addition, her drawing line is characteristic. We can learn how to draw the line by Adobe illustrator from her picture.

During my travel to France and America, I could find this book, “RESET“. So you may find this book at the bookstore near your home. Moreover, you can get in Amazon USA or Amazon Japan. Please check it.

kazuya book, illustration Kunie Kanbara, orange pekoe

I use the WordPress template, iNove 1.2.3. This template is cool and sophisticated “on display”. However, it isn’t cool when I print it out. This is because iNove don’t have CSS for print. So I think I have to design the CSS for print. Before that, I did quick-fixing. I want to explain the way of quick-fixing.

I changed the file start.php. It is located at iNove>templates>start.php.

Before : <style type=”text/css” media=”screen”>
After : <style type=”text/css” media=”screen,print“>

After doing this, the design on the paper looks like the one on the display. Please try it!!

kazuya wordpress[WP] CSS, iNove, wordpress

How many colors do you have?

Felissimo, one of the major direct marketing companies in Japan, is going to sell 500 color pencils this spring.

The 500 color pencils are remake. Older versions were sold in 1992 all over the world. Then they were sold out.

The way to get them is unique. If  you order this product, you’ll get 25 color pencils each month. After 20 months, you will get all of them.

I want to use them and display them in my room. Each pencil has a unique name. We can enjoy reading them. In addition, This  product help us to learn about colors. So it will be a good present for child.

The price is ¥1,800 per month. However, if you order it until April 30th 2009, you get a discount. The price becomes ¥1,500 per month. You can save a total of ¥6,000(=¥300 x 20months). The people liveing in Japan can order now. I have already ordered it.

Official Website “500 color pencils” (Written in Japanese)
http://www.felissimo.co.jp/contents/html/colors/

kazuya product design color pencils, felissimo

I use the template, iNove 1.2.3. This template is cool and sophisticated. However, it may not have enough SEO capability and functionality. So I tried to add into custom header information in HTML. Particularly, I changed the description of header information. Then, “記事のいろいろな情報をGetする“ was a very useful page for me. But that page is written in Jpananese, sorry about that … Let’s talk about it in detail “in English”.

I changed the file start.php. It is located at iNove>templates>start.php.

The original default : $description =  $post->post_title;
After the change : $description =  mb_substr($post->post_excerpt, 0, 200);

Remember following tags. These are useful.

$post->post_title : show post titile
$post->post_content : show post content
$post->post_excerpt : show post excerpt
$post->post_name : show post name
$post->ID : show entry ID

*the post names are not post titles but unique names for each post.

kazuya wordpress[WP] iNove, wordpress

This monday, I got a new camera. It is a Ricoh R10. I bought it from Amazon Japan last weekend, and it was delivered this monday.

I previously had a single-lens reflex, Pentax K100. It is very good camera for beginners and the battery is dry-cell battery. If the battery runs out, you get a new one everywhere, everytime. And you can use eneloop, which is good battery made by SANYO. The price of the rechargeable buttery is reasonable. I recommend this battery. (Check eneloop on Amazon USA, Amazon Japan.)

However, it’s difficult for me to carry the single-lens reflex everyday, because the weight is heavy and the size is big. So I wanted to buy new one to be able to carry easily everyday.

I compared some compact cameras, canon G10 and Richo GRII.

Canon G10 is a good camera, you even take high quality pictures at night. And there are a lot of useful buttons. For instance, it has a button to adjust ISO quickly. But the price was higher than I thought, and the weight was the highest in comparison to other compact cameras. (Check Canon G10 on Amazon USA , Amazon Japan.)

Ricoh GRII is a attractive camera. It recieved Good Design Award in Japan in 2008. The camera is used by many famous photographer. There are a lot of  accessories. These accessories are attractive, too. The pictures are beautiful and sharp. However, the price was higher than I could afford. (Check Ricoh GRII on Amazon USA, Amazon Japan.)

After comparison,  I got  Ricoh R10. I’ll carry it in my bag everyday. (Check Ricoh R10 on Amazon USA, Amazon Japan.)

kazuya photo R10

Today, “design in daily life” opened.

We introduce cool and sweet design in daily life in Japan.

We’d like to show some photos and pictures, and tell about museums in Japan, web design and, illustration. The picture on the left was drawn by Kazuya who lives in Kobe, Japan. He is one of the writer on this website.

kazuya Information