Signal of the week

Japan-inspired · 8 stories, +8 vs last week

Japan-inspired: 8 stories in seven days, +8 on the week before.

A Minimalist Low-Cost Japanese Sketchbook Core77

Fledgling reporters are sparking up Japan’s news channels – but where have they gone in the West? Monocle

Latest

Core77Core77 Weekly Roundup (9-21-26 to 9-25-26) Here's what we looked at this week: KAIST develops a low-cost way to detect hidden cameras using your smartphone. Industrial designer Alberto Essesi's pen for precision sketching.

September 27

Core77Mafell's Beefy Portable Drilling Station for Timber Framers Traditional timber framing is still very much a thing in Europe. Timber framers often need to drill accurate holes for the pegs that will fasten two timbers, and these holes occasionally need to be…

September 27

Core77Raak Design Casts Light on a Medical Tool ENT doctors use nasal speculums to look inside a patient's nose. Typically the tool is held in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

September 27

AbduzeedoBest of the Week: Structural Packaging and Swiss Grids

September 27

BRUTUSJapan「アイドル衣装の解体新書。」田中大資 × G-DRAGON ステージの演出でより輝く変身させられる衣装背中から羽が生えているかのようなデザインのジャケットは、僕のブランド〈tanakadaisuke〉のコレクション。G-DRAGONさんがライブで着用してくださり、別のライブではオーダーで衣装のデザインもさせていただきました。どういう動きを入れたらステージ映えするか、面白がって着てくれていたと思います。軽くて踊りやすいのもポイント。

September 27

Fonts In UseGood Housekeeping magazine ad Photo(s) by mikeyashworth on Flickr. Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by mikeyashworth and tagged with “lilith” and “bodoni” . License: All Rights Reserved .

September 27

Fast Company DesignMoMA explores the useful beauty of information design When people post infographics on their Instagram accounts, they’re sharing information and facts about the world with their followers.

September 27

BRUTUSJapan実業家・ゆとりくんに聞く。一問即答！私のお金観ゆとりくん（実業家） 1993年神奈川県生まれ。本名は片石貴展。2018年にInstagramアカウント「古着女子」を立ち上げて、初期投資0円の“インスタ起業”として〈yutori〉を創業。〈9090〉〈HTH〉〈PAMM〉など複数のファッションブランドを運営。20年7月、ZOZOへハーフジョインし、23年アパレル業界最年少で東証グロース市場へ上場する。

September 27

Fonts In UseGray and Fox Squirrels by John Madson Contributed by Bryson Stohr Source: www.amazon.com License: All Rights Reserved . This book by John Madson revolves around gray and fox squirrels, what they are, and where they live.

September 27

発見, hakken: a finding. This is a record of what one designer notices in a week.

I grew up beside the Arakawa, in Adachi, and spent five years in a Ginza studio drawing identities for companies you have used without once thinking about them. That work teaches you to read a city as a page. A vending machine is set type. A rice bag is a packaging problem somebody solved in the eighties and nobody has improved on since. A good deal of the best design in Japan is like that: already in the street, unsigned, waiting to be looked at properly.

So this magazine watches the street as well as the feed. Around fifty sources come in through the day, ten of them Japanese, and what the world's studios are arguing about is counted and plotted so you can watch it move. Every third day I write about one thing I actually stood in front of.

What you get for a story is a headline, a short excerpt, one picture and the way out to the people who reported it. Never the article itself, and never the photograph as though it were ours. A story written in Japanese stays in Japanese here, headline and excerpt both, because that is how its author set it down.

Everything is also published in Japanese at hakkenmag.com/ja/.

— Ren Arakawa, Tokyo

One letter a week, in your inbox.

Signal of the week

Japan-inspired: 8 stories in seven days, +8 on the week before.

A Minimalist Low-Cost Japanese Sketchbook Core77

Fledgling reporters are sparking up Japan’s news channels – but where have they gone in the West? Monocle

Latest

Core77Core77 Weekly Roundup (9-21-26 to 9-25-26) Here's what we looked at this week: KAIST develops a low-cost way to detect hidden cameras using your smartphone. Industrial designer Alberto Essesi's pen for precision sketching.

Core77Mafell's Beefy Portable Drilling Station for Timber Framers Traditional timber framing is still very much a thing in Europe. Timber framers often need to drill accurate holes for the pegs that will fasten two timbers, and these holes occasionally need to be…

Core77Raak Design Casts Light on a Medical Tool ENT doctors use nasal speculums to look inside a patient's nose. Typically the tool is held in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

TypewolfDaylight

TypewolfHeart & Soil

TypewolfDirty Vine

AbduzeedoBest of the Week: Structural Packaging and Swiss Grids

Fonts In UseGood Housekeeping magazine ad Photo(s) by mikeyashworth on Flickr. Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by mikeyashworth and tagged with “lilith” and “bodoni” . License: All Rights Reserved .

Fast Company DesignMoMA explores the useful beauty of information design When people post infographics on their Instagram accounts, they’re sharing information and facts about the world with their followers.

Fonts In UseGray and Fox Squirrels by John Madson Contributed by Bryson Stohr Source: www.amazon.com License: All Rights Reserved . This book by John Madson revolves around gray and fox squirrels, what they are, and where they live.