Aiko Designs is currently on exhibit (along with Rukus) at Cafe Bossa Sancha in Sangenjaya, Tokyo (sounds fancy, doesn’t it?). Cafe Bossa is a cute, teeny-tiny, bar/cafe/restaurant around the corner from the South-A exit of Sangenjaya Station. Here are some pics after setting up:
Here are some more fun (and kawaii) findings from Design Festa:
Binkuma
Little creatures in little bottles — I think binkuma literally means bottle bear! See more at her site.
Larvahouse
This is something out of an anime movie — a surreal city block in Tokyo made out of cardboard:
and some art being made on site…I didn’t get the name of the artist/s, but saw another artist doing similar work on a smaller scale – Akamatsu Naoki…
Design Festa is over and I have my mushroom lamp (so excited about this!), but I forgot to take a picture of Yukio’s (of Great Mushrooming) stump chairs. I’m including images from his site so you can see.
These stools were in his booth! So cool.
Also, my friend took a look at his blog and said he posted about my purchase of his lamp. He knew that I have to carry the lamp on a plane so spent hours making this box to package it up in (he was up til 3:00a.m. making this!). I’m so impressed.
There are some interesting things at Design Festa. Mostly a lot of cutesy, crafty things that you would buy and wonder why you did a week later. Luckily, I found Yukio Takano (Great Mushrooming) and I’m going home with one of his pieces.
He makes mushroom lamps! Check out my new lamp:
it turns on by switching one of the mushroom pieces hanging off of the wood base. Genius!
Here are some of his other pieces and you can see more at his site.
Great Mushrooming
I’m in Tokyo at the moment doing this large event called Design Festa. I’ve done a smaller event in Tokyo, so it’s interesting to get to do such a large event in Japan.
Here are some images from today.
Almost there…
I really think they meant to name it “Tokyo Big Site”
you get the picture — it’s a really, really big place!
Getting ready for the show. We arrived at 8:30am and the show went from 11:00am – 7:00pm. I’m sharing a table with Tommy (his English nickname) of Rukus…he’s a creative genius and his displays are always amazing.
My friend Noriko helped out a lot today — she’s an incredible sales person (lucky me!).
We were a bit crammed into our space and the air conditioning seemed to not be working, but I felt like we had some of the best jewelry there. We also had a few moments for some fun — like Tommy playing with his new toy (mobile phone strap toy — yes, they have large stuffed animals hanging from mobile phones in Japan!).
Aiko Designs was linked to on The Carrotbox blog post today. So cool since it is a blog dedicated to rings (only non-metal rings) and I don’t do rings at the moment!
Alice Matsumoto of Vancouver, BC started The Carrotbox because of her love for rings and allergy to metals. Her site is great — you can view her personal collection of rings by color swatch, shop for rings for yourself, and of course check out her blog where she posts on ring designers from all over the world.
