Taking inspiration from Japan’s many Shōtengai (local market streets) we curated at Coal Drops Yard, Kings Cross, Lower Stable Street Market – a mix of stalls featuring Japanese homeware and food in celebration of the Tokyo Olympics. The market consisted of 10 – 12 stalls curated by BEAMS & CO alongside regulars from the Lower Stable Street line-up.

Like most Shōtengai in Japanese cities, a wide range of goods were available including homewares from Native & Co, artisan Japanese breads from Rise Bakery and Bar, and a range of posters from Problem Press. 

Recent work from the acclaimed fashion photographer and director Mika Ninagawa was also exhibited. Entitled Beauty and Power, Ninagawa’s photographs of Japanese Para athletes radiated positivity and colour and displayed using lightboxes on site. A free screening of the film ‘Witches Of The Orient’ was shown on the big screen opposite Granary Square.

Branding, a newspaper brochure and social media content were created for the event.

Featured stall holders:
Bungu
Ki:ts
Native & Co
Nishura East
Notable Designs
Notting Hill Editions
Okan
Pippy Eats
Problem Press / The Printers Devil
Rise Bakery and Bar
Sansho
Speck
tokyobike

BE AT TOKYO is a space where everything happens, representing new voices of creatives from Japan and beyond. The brand name stems from the vibrancy and the underlining beat of Tokyo. 

The logo is inspired by the works of graphic predecessors such as M.C Escher; bringing the ordinary and the esoteric together. It plays with interlocking forms that can be viewed from different perspectives to signify this new physical and digital space where collaborative, innovative thinking and ideas can be born.

BE AT TOKYO is a new online / offline platform, realising new cultures that will lead the next generation. It is a space where all types of creatives meet, collaborate and create a new set of values and experiences.

In collaboration with Natsuki Kikuya, founder of Museum Of Sake, we have designed the label and branding for the UK launch of Tsuchida Brewery’s low-intervention sake, TE TO TE (originating from the meaning, Sky & Hand – 天と手).

Tsuchida Sake Brewery is situated in Kawaba, a small village in Gunma, a mountainous region northwest of Tokyo. Established in 1907, it has been a family operation for six generations.

Natsuki Kikuya is founder of intangible museum Museum of Sake. It provides education and promotion of the craft of sake, connecting Japan to the UK and Europe through a range of special events and courses for the public and food industry. Their activities allow guests to experience the art of sake, discovering the history, land, climate, weather and craftsmanship of the many different regions of Japan. Through an international growth in the popularity and appreciation of Sake, the Museum looks to enrich and extend the history to a new generation within Japan and the wider world.

We designed and art directed an official exhibition product for Olafur Eliasson x TOKYO CULTUART by BEAMS in conjunction with the exhibition ‘Olafur Eliasson; Sometimes the river is the bridge’ taking place at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in Japan.

These collaboration T-shirts, featuring slogan typography, printed in using PVC-free inks, are made out of 100% recycled polyester yarn, regenerated from recycled plastic bottles. Japan has the second highest rate of disposed plastic waster per capita in the world according to UN’s Environment programme’s research published in 2018. This project is brought together in an attempt to raise public awareness about the consequences of climate change and also shed light on the important of renewable energy through art, with an aim of increasing awareness of Olafur Eliasson’s philosophy and exhibitions to a wider audience.

Olafur Eliasson was born in 1967 in Copenhagen, Denmark, and is currently based in Berlin and Copenhagen. Eliasson often uses natural phenomena and is internationally renowned for numerous works. Eliasson has also increased his efforts to advance sustainable development in recent years.

TOKYO CULTUART by BEAMS: A label launched in 2008 to introduce art, design, and culture to the world. The name CULTUART is a coined word combining CULT, CULTURE, and ART. The shop carries a wide range of art and design products, books, and exclusive collector toys including figurines and soft vinyl figures. TOKYO CULTUART captures restless Tokyo to express modern Japan.

We were commissioned to undertake research, make editorial proposals, conduct interviews and produce shoots for POPEYE magazine, the leading Japanese men’s fashion and cultural title for over 45 years. Working closely and regularly with them we have made creative in some of their most popular issues, including features on world renowned designer Marc Newson, London based skateboarding brand Palace Skateboards and editorialising English cultural content.

With their tagline of ‘Magazine for City Boys’, POPEYE Magazine focuses on authentic cultural and lifestyle topics including fashion, food, outdoor activities and travel.

COS commissioned us to be a creative consultant to engage in effective brand exercise in Japan. The brand exercise was to illustrate COS’s brand pillars message –  timeless, modern, classic, tactile through the brand’s wardrobe essential in collaboration with DAIKANYAMA T-SITE in conjunction with COS JAPAN e-commerce launch. Audiences were encouraged to engage with the COS design and learned more about the brand philosophy and design influences with art and architecture through the exhibition, also displayed with selection of books and literatures as the integral part of installation.

DAIKANYAMA T-SITE: Designed by Klein Dytham Architecture, DAIKANYAMA T-SITE is a cultural complex of books, music, and movie retail market by rental chain TSUTAYA in Japan. DAIKANYAMA TSUTAYA BOOKS, the TSUTAYA for grownups, is tied to the theme of “A Library in the Woods.” Three building wings connect together along Magazine Street, a 55-meter long aisle that cuts through the middle at ground level. From this tree-trunk like artery, six book departments branch out by category.Café space is housed within the complex to allow for leisurely in-store browsing.

Ace Hotel London commissioned us to create a series of Kyoto inspired cultural programmes to celebrate the opening of Ace Hotel Kyoto.

Sounds of Kyoto – We commissioned Bonjour Records, a multi-brand lifestyle retailer, to create 2 hours Kyoto-inspired playlist exclusively for Ace Hotel London to be played at their lobby for 2 weeks.

Kyoto Sake Tasting – In a collaboration with Natsuki Kikuya, the director of MUSEUM OF SAKE, we organised a sake tasting event to guide guests to the beauty of sake from Kyoto with an exclusive selection of five sakes from four different breweries. Alongside the tasting event, we designed and produced a booklet for the event to introduce Kyoto’s famed for its sake brewing history and culture.

Small Building of Kyoto – We organised the exhibition with a selection of images from ‘Small Buildings of Kyoto’, a publication that features a wide range of buildings in Kyoto at the lobby bar.

Sake tasting at Ace Hotel London with Natsuki Kikuya of Museum of Sake.

Small Buildings of Kyoto by John Einarsen.

Sounds of Kyoto by Shogo Misume of Bonjour Records x Ace Hotel London.

Bonjour Records is a leading multi-brand cultural and lifestyle retail, championing a discerning taste in sourcing the greatness of greats from all over the world whether it be music, fashion relevant in global and local cultural contexts. It is a platform and place whereby the curious and the open-minded merges.

MUSEUM OF SAKE is an intangible museum, founded by Natsuki Kikuya. It provides education and promotion of the craft of sake, connecting Japan to the UK and Europe through a range of special events and courses for the wider public and food industry.

Small Buildings of Kyoto is a photography book by John Einarsen, the founder of Kyoto Journal. It features 100 images of the quaint homes, businesses, workshops, as well as the occasional neighbourhood shrine and teahouse, that make up the fabric of Japan’s ancient capital.

Touba London, a leading creative fashion and lifestyle showroom commissioned us to redesign their logo and website, to enhance their branding. We created an entire new logo for their art business, Le Salon Des Arts.

TOUBA LONDON is a London-based representative, distributor and agent for both established and exciting new international and British designers. They also provide a showcase for designers and artists to display their creativity and talent in fashion, photography and artwork by curating showroom presentations as well as photographic and artwork exhibitions in London, Paris, Tokyo, Copenhagen and New York.

Working closely with Company Place and Kiosk N1C as collaborative project through brainstorming to conceptualising, Coal Drops Yard commissioned us and BUAISOU to produce a series of handmade and hand dyed flags as public arena installation, followed with a series of dyeing workshops where participants can learn natural Japanese indigo-dying techniques during London Craft Week. The project delivered hands-on Japanese artisanal craft for the first time in London.

BUAISOU (pronounced “boo-i-saw”), founded in 2012, is an artisanal collective, preserving and reviving the tradition of Japanese Indigo. Located in Tokushima Prefecture, an area of Japan known for producing Awa indigo. BUAISOU does everything from indigo cultivation and creating dye to designing and making products.

Coal Drops Yard is a new shopping and restaurant district in London’s King’s Cross. Coal Drops Yard was originally established in 1850 to handle the eight million tonnes of coal delivered to the capital each year, and was latterly the location of nightclubs Bagley’s and The Cross. The area reopened in October 2018, reinvented by the acclaimed Heatherwick Studio, which has interwoven a contemporary design with the surviving structures and rich ironwork of the original Victorian coal drops. Located within a reimagined set of historic buildings and arches directly adjacent to Granary Square and Regent’s Canal, Coal Drops Yard houses over fifty stores from a unique mix of established and emerging brands, along with cafés, bars, top independent restaurants and new public spaces.

We created and assisted an overall promotional and marketing strategy for sonic branding event held by Bao Bao Issey Miyake titled “BAO BAO VOICE” during London Design Festival 2019. This was an interactive, multi-sensory event that demonstrates the unique and colourful designs along with the playful nature of the brand. Merging product with movement and sound, BAO BAO VOICE was an event that allowed users to engage with the structures, shapes and textures of the bags, like musical instruments.

BAO BAO ISSEY MIYAKE is a line of bags and pouches with the theme ‘shapes made by chance’. Since its inception in 2010, it has established a unique array of products through the pursuit of shapes made from simple pieces and diverse materials. BAO BAO ISSEY MIYAKE bags are made of versatile, triangular pieces, which take on many forms when used in practical situations. The construction lends itself to transformation through use, light and colour, which can change in an infinite number of ways. BAO BAO ISSEY MIYAKE merges serendipitous beauty, with colour, playfulness, and practicality for everyday life. 

London Design Festival: Established in 2003 by Sir John Sorrell CBE and Ben Evans, London Design Festival celebrates and promotes London as the design capital of the world. London Design Festival has since earned the reputation as a key calendar moment of London’s autumn creative season, alongside London Fashion Week, Frieze Art Fair and the London Film Festival, attracting the greatest thinkers, practitioners, retailers and educators to the capital, in a citywide celebration.