Corporate identity and website re-design of TokyoApartment.com, the well-known apartment search portal for Tokyo. The site is run by Big Brother K.K. (partly owned by Gplus Media). The challenge of this project was to harmonise and merge 3 separate websites into one (TokyoApartment.com, JapanKeibai.com, Big-Brother.jp) and adding three more site sections (serviced apartments, property valuation and property management).

Through the incorporation of these formerly separate sites, all offered services are benefiting from the combined traffic of the new site.

Bento Graphics provided identity design, logo & icon design, information architecture and thorough prototyping with wireframe graphics, final graphic design, standards compliant-semantically marked up XHTML templates and CSS styling. Additionally set-up and implementation of a bilingual J/E Wordpress site for the “Property Management” and Big Brother K.K. section of the site. Extensive consulting and final CSS & XHTML fixes for the whole site. Programming: GPlus Media.

The visual concept of the site plays with a uniform house logo, which is altered from section to section of the site. For each section an additional item is added to the house icon, therefore the main logo is always recognisable yet in an altered state. Also a unique colour palette was chosen. Accordingly the colour of links and headlines changes from section to section.

Old:

http://www.skm-t.co.jp

New:

http://skm-test.net

Please take a look here: www.tokyoapartment.com

A project description was added to the portfolio section, here:

http://bentographics.com/portfolio/web/tokyo-apartment

A new website for British product designer Marianne Bailey. Marianne Bailey has been working for design studio’s such as Factorydesign (London) and currently works for the Yamaha Product Design Laboratory in Japan. One reason to launch her personal website was the ‘au Design project and Yamaha’ exhibition at the KDDI Design Center in Tokyo in July/August 2008. There she exhibited some of her latest cutting-edge musical mobile phone concepts, developed for au/KDDI by Yamaha.

The concept of the website is based on a play of questions and answers. Also a line is guiding the visitor throughout the site and stopping at each of her projects. A little bit like a visual work resume in a horizontal fashion. Her design solutions always start from a question which carries social relevance.

The site navigation works by playfully sliding from one project page to the next. A sub menu offers to ’slide’ to certain sections of the site, such as works for certain employers, her biography or contact page. The site features also Flash video sections for certain projects, Javascript slide-shows and project descriptions. Some time was spend into with finding a suitable visual style for her site, eventually lots of white-space and line-drawings which hint spacial design were used. Site concept and drawings: Marianne Bailey and Atsushi Imai.

The site required extensive Javascript implementation and programming with the Jquery framework. Also video editing and set up of Flash video on the project pages, as well as standards compliant-semantic XHTML and CSS styling.

Marianne Bailey used to work at Factorydesign (London) and currently works for the Yamaha Product design laboratory in Japan. Her work is on display from 25th July 2008 - 31th August 2008 at the “au design project & Yamaha” exhibition at the KDDI Design Center in Tokyo.

Read more about this project in my portfolio section:
http://bentographics.com/portfolio/web/marianne-bailey/

June 13th, 2008, Friday
11:00 pm - 5:00 am

Cover Charge:
¥4000, ¥3500 with flyer / WOMB members,
¥3000 Clubberia members

More info: www.minimaltokyo.com

The Minimal Tokyo crew will team up with Organza for a minimal
techno night at legendary Tokyo club Womb. On the main floor,
Organza resident DJs Pi-Ge and Taro Sugawara will be joined by
Spanish Techno virtuosi Alex Under and Tadeo, accompanied
by visuals from Minimal Tokyo resident VJ Spielfilm.

Minimal Tokyo will take over the 1st floor lounge, where resident
DJs Tatsuya, Ivan Kuzbass, Shu Okuyama (Milnormodern, Minimood)
and GLMN(c) will join forces Valentino de Bronff (Minimood) to play
cutting edge minimal techno, deep and tech house.

Minimal Tokyoがあの Womb のミニマル・テクノナイトでDJします！
メインフロアーでは、OrganzaレジデントDJ、 Pi-Ge と Taro Sugawara が
スペインからのゲスト Alex Under と Tadeo 共にスピン、そしてMinimal
TokyoのレジデントVJ、SpielfilmもVJします！ そして、一階はMinimal
TokyoレジデントDJs (Tatsuya、Ivan Kuzbass、Shu Okuyama 、
GLMN、そして MinimoodからValentino de Bronff ）によオーガナイズ。
オールナイトでカッティングエッジなミニマルテクノ、ディープハウス、
テックハウスをプレイします。

I will be performing live visuals back to back with Max Hattler and Robert Seidel on their Japan tour in Roots (club), Kobe on Friday 23th May 2006. Details: ¥2500 w1d + free buffet. Cafe Spark, 1F 3-2-1 Nunobiki-cho Chuo-ku, Kobe, Hyogo.

A new 8-page pamphlet and business cards for the Tokyo Craniosacral Clinic run by Lionel Gougne. Lionel Gougne offers Craniosacral Threapie, lymph drainage, Osteopathy and others. This projects included illustration, layout and pre-press, also the design of a geographical location map.

Business Cards

Gozi Ochonogor is a wellknown Nigerian fashion designer based in Tokyo. “She started designing her own clothes while still studying, selling them at west London’s Portobello Market and acquiring several retail customers in Paris and Japan.”

Her new website is divided into the GOZI and the UMI-1 label, which are basically separate websites. The GOZI label is on stand by, whereas the UMI-1 label is actively developed right now.
On her UMI-1 (you.me.one) label Gozi collaborates with a Japanese artist for each collection. This fact was taken into consideration when designing her site. On the collection pages a hidden layer with information about the collaboration artist can be revealed. Hence the look of each added collection page will change through the imagery of the collaboration artist. The collection pages also feature a Flash based gallery with a zooming function. The collections can be viewed in a fullscreen mode too (when choosing from the right-mouse click popdown-menu) and navigated with they keyboard (arrow and blank keys).

The project included all design, HTML/CSS, costumization of the Flash based collection gallery, Javascript coding (using the Jquery Javascript framework) and sIFR for Flash headline replacements.

collaboration, CSS, Customization, Fashion, fashion designer, Flash, Information Architecture, japanese artist, Javascript, Jquery, sifr, Web Design, XHTML]]> http://bentographics.com/portfolio/web/gozi-fashion/feed/ http://bentographics.com/blog/minimal-tokyo-party-9-feat-bento-live-visuals/ http://bentographics.com/blog/minimal-tokyo-party-9-feat-bento-live-visuals/#comments Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:31:58 +0000 Bento http://bentographics.com/blog/minimal-tokyo-party-9-feat-bento-live-visuals/

Please be invited to the next Minimal Tokyo party on 10th May 2008 at Liquidroom - Loft

Live music set by SALMON (Karmarouge Noir / Raum…musik / WC Recordings) meets live visuals by MAX HATTLER (UK) and ROBERT SEIDEL (Germany).
Guest DJ: YOSHIKI (op.disk, Torema Recordings);
Minimal Tokyo resident DJs Tatsuya, Ivan Kuzbass, GLMN© and Shu Okuyama will play minimal techno, tech house and electro. Visuals are by Bento and MOA.

Starts 24:00 until 6:00 am; entrance is ¥2000 with flier and ¥2500 without flyer. For ¥1500 discount list, mail me

Please take look at her new homepage here: www.gozi.co.uk

Re-branding and web design for this London (UK) based web business. HereComesTheBoss.com is aimed at graduates and it`s tag-line reads “Finding your way into work - The graduate mentor for the world of work. Get career advice, watch company videos, and connect with employers. Giving you the best chance to find your dream job”. This site offers a video resume function for graduates as well as companies wanting to present their profile in a video format.

This project included extensive planing of information architecture and menu structure through wireframe graphics. The re-branding work started with a mood board and completed with a final corporate identity and the site design. A basic set of HTML/CSS templates were coded as well. Full site implementation by Adept Scientific.

Much time was put into the design of numerous black-humor fuelled custom icons, which are believed to go well with the young target group of university graduates. The re-branding of Herecomestheboss.com is meant to position this site as the top graduate video profiling site and at the same time standing out from the competition with it`s quirky appearance and the energetic and funny mascot Hanson.

A similar design was applied to the Here Comes The Boss user channel on Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/herecomesthebosscom a Bebo page http://www.bebo.com/herecomestheboss and a Facebook page.

Below are most of the custom icons which were created for Here Comes The Boss:

Flyer design for the Japan Tour 2008 of Max Hattler & Robert Seidel, both award winning filmmakers, Vjs and animators. Starting with a mostly English event listing this page was later altered to appeal to the Japanese target group. The events listing was partly translated & sprincled with Japanese words in order to seduce the Japanese eye into the content.

The Japan Tour is still upcoming/active. To read more please visit this page:
www.bentographics.com/blog/hattler-seidel-japan-tour-2008/

My dear good friend Max Hattler and his sidekick Robert Seidel, both award-winning film makers, animators and VJs launching a Japan tour from 21. April - 28. May 2008. They will be roaming the streets of Tokyo till 10th of May, with several scheduled VJ-events, screenings and talks. After the 10th May they will continue their tour in the Kansai area (Osaka, Kobe etc). I will partly join them on their tour and perform live-visuals back to back with them at Roots Club / Café Spark in Kobe on the 23th May 2008.

On 23th April will be the in-official tour launch party in club Le Baron (Tokyo) with live visuals by Max Hattler, Rober Seidel as well as moi and others. This event is guest only. Below are a few other events they are participating in Tokyo:

• Thu 24 April // Presentation at Pecha Kucha Night, SuperDeluxe // Tokyo
• Wed 7 May, 19h // Screening + talk at Uplink Factory // Tokyo
• Thu 8 May, 19h // Screening + talk at Uplink Factory // Tokyo
• Sat 10 May // AV live set with Salmon (JP) at Minimal Tokyo, Liquid Rooms // Tokyo

Please download and spread their official press release (PDF) here:
PRESS-RELEASE_Hattler-Seidel_Japan-Tour-2008.pdf

Download the official tour flyer here:
maxhattler_robertseidel_japantour2008.pdf

A new homepage for the YMS Language School. This project included all graphic design, HTML/CSS, Wordpress CMS templates and implementation. This is for you, if you like vanilla coloured backgrounds and huge fonts!

A new web site and visual identity for photographer and writer Andy. J. Tylor. The site is based on Wordpress CMS, therefore the client is able to update the site by himself. Features of the site are a gallery area and a hidden download area. In the hidden download area the client can post i.e. images secured by a password, which he can send to a publisher for download.
Below is a draft of the branding process.

By the way:
I slightly changed the layout of this site to make more room for the actual content. Site-headers are a thing of the past ;) All headlines on this site now use sIFR in order to make this site more accessible. sIFR allows the usage of other fonts apart from the operating system fonts. I might use this technology more often for other upcoming websites too. Also, I placed a QR-code on my contact page, which is hugely popular in Japan and can be found on nearly every product or flyer. QR-codes can be scanned i.e. by mobile phones to access data about products or services including address details. Finally, from now you should be able to access this site via your mobile phone too.

Business cards for WA-Associates, a Tokyo start-up company. Sarah Watterson runs her own spa consultancy, which i.e. helps large hotel chains with the setup and running of spa facilities.

www.ikonmedia.info

Live VJ-set for the yearly Metropolis Glitterball party. The party was held on 14th February 2008 in Club Alife in Roppongi (Tokyo). Some of the live-visuals were exclusively composed for the main sponsor of this party - Coca Cola.

Metropolis is “Japan’s No 1 English magazine”.

Above is a sample video of the vj live set.

Her new homepage went online today.
Design & coding by Bento Graphics.

www.parissahaghirian.com

Parissa Haghirian is an Austrian professor with a lecturship at Sophia University in Tokyo. She currently teaches international management and is actively building her personal brand image as a lecturer, author and coach.

The first part was to create a distinctive visual identity for her as a striving author, lecturer and coach. Some of the keywords for the visual identity were: International (management), Asia<->Europe, writing and letters (also Asian alphabets), feminine, friendly but well-organised, serious but not boring.

In the second part, I applied the final identity design to her new website. This English-German bilingual website is run on the Wordpress CMS/blog platform and can conveniently be updated by the client. It features a start page which reflects the recent activities and postings of the site. All areas of the site display distinctive icons and decorative graphic elements appear in random order. RSS feeds are customised and the user can subscribe to separate feeds for the English and German entries of the site.

The set-up of the site included HTML & CSS coding as well as basic PHP customisations and Wordpress template design.

A Japanese language section will be integrated in the future.

Details: www.metropolis.co.jp/glitterball

SARAH GOLDFARB from France (Treibstoff / Dumb Unit / Roman, Photo);
Minimal Tokyo resident DJs: Tatsuya, Kuzbass, GLMN© and Shu Okuyama will play minimal techno, tech house and electro.
Visuals by: Bento, Shantell Martin, MOA and Trembl.

Starts 11:45 pm until 6:00 am;
entrance is Y2000 with flier and Y2500 without flier.

For reduced entrance fee you can also send me an email.
Hope to see you there!

http://bentographics.com/portfolio.php

Parissa Haghirian is an Austrian professor with a lecturship at Sophia University in Tokyo.
She currently teaches international management and is actively building her personal brand image as a lecturer, author and coach.

www.parissahaghirian.com

There is still more in store for early 2008, two more websites will be launched,
one BIG, one small.

…the largest and the most important design festival in Japan…

in Unit Daikanyama. Design Tide is a once a year Tokyo-wide design event, with several main exhibitions and many supporting galleries and design events. Design Tide will be from 31th October - 4th November 2007.

You are cordially invited to join & enjoy our event at Unit Daikanyama
on 2th November 2007, from 11pm to 6am.

For discounted tickets mail me (2000¥ instead of 3500¥)!

A fully featured CMS based portfolio website for the wellknown designer of information graphics and 3d illustration - Eliot Bergman. The site serves to show-case his professional work portfolio.

The web-site involved also the development of a style-guide, consisting of logo and a selection of colours and fonts. Please note the image below, which shows work in progress on the actual style-guide.

The web-site is based on Wordpress and offeres a thumbnail and a slideshow view of each gallery. The Flash driven slideshow feeds from the same source of images as the original artwork and is very convenient for updates. Thumbnails are dynamically generated from the same art-work. The slideshow-view is enhanced by music through a Flash based MP3 player.

The web-site also has a blogging section and contact as well as about pages. The front page of the site displays a custom intro animation.

The new project will soon be listed with a full description and images

http://www.ebergman.com

B.T.

Layout of the Yearbook 2007 for the British School in Tokyo.

This more than 140 page strong yearbook contains i.e. introduction of the school staff, a vast photo-collection of the last years school events such as sports, school-trips and activities. The book also includes many collages which were assembled by the students.

The layout was rendered in Adobe Indesign CS2. The printing process was simplified by using the PDF format.

Adaption of a Flash template. My task was to customize a ready-made Flash template for Shine Advertising. The customization-process involved Flash animation, image processing, video editing and minor Actionscript changes, as well as HTML/CSS.

Design and implementation of a Wordpress based HTML/CSS website for the Norwegian writer L.G.Kavli. The website pretends to be a local news-paper for a small town in the middle of the United States. All news are ficious and written by L.G.Kavli. The website serves as his personal showcase.

The website is based on a customized Wordpress (blog-software) which enables the writer to update the website easily by himself.

The design is based on a five column grid which mimicks the layout of a news-paper in printed matter. The stock-market chart updates dynamically via a RSS feed and the weather information displays the the climate in central area of the USA.

Design and implementation of a Wordpress based website for the welknown wrist-watch and apparel brand Fossil. This is the official Fossil Japan HTML/CSS website. It displays Fossil news, company information, downloads, an extensive shop listing as well as the complete ladies and mens collection of Fossil watches.

The website is based on a customized Wordpress (CMS/Blog) install which enables the client to update the website easily by himself. The Fossil watch collection area can be sorted and viewed by individual watch collections.

The Fossil design is slightly vintage inspired and follows the official brand identity. The Fossil style guide was used throughout the design development process.

This video is an rough edit of a live video performance for the German National Tourist Office. It was performed before a press conference in the Dainippon Hall (Tokyo). The music is mixed by Ryo Bordini Chikushi.

The fifth flyer for the Minimal Tokyo team. This flyer was designed with a “Hanami”-theme in the back of my head. April, the month of this party, is usually cherry blossom time (or also called “Hanami”) in Japan. That is when the whole country is squatting in the parks to marvel at the beauty of the puffy white/pink clouds in the trees. Also extensive picnic parties are held, often with home-made snacks like Bento-Boxes or Onigiri. In the rush to the parks, often people only use those cheap, blue plastic sheets. All these details were used to create this flyer-design.

My task was to mainly create all the maps in this Tokyo Guide Pamphlet, also all layout work. The Washoi Magazine contains 7 highly detailed maps of the main Tokyo sightseeing areas.

Design and implementation of a HTML/CSS website (accompanying the Flash Version) for the Japanese band Boom Boom Satellites.

The website is based on a customized Wordpress install to achieve fully bilingual, mirrored posting in Japanese and English. A customized backend allows smooth posting of new record details with a navigation based on thumbnail images.

The forum area feeds from the same database as the sister - Flash-based - site. Hence all forum postings and comments update on both sites simultaneously. The website makes use of Javascripts to render round corners and a shadow effect without the use of images.

Boom Boom Satellites site design has changed.

The 3rd Flyer for the Minimal Tokyo Team. This flyer is designed with the new Minimal Tokyo visual identity. The theme of this party was “Lucky Bag” which relate to the surprise bags which are sold all over Japan after new years day. These bags are traditionally closed and it can not be seen what is inside. On the Minimal Tokyo “Lucky Bag” event a lottery took place, where actual “Lucky Bags” were handed out as prices. They contained a cheeky mixture of amusing but utterly useless objects.

Production of a Flash website for Charmant.jp, one of the leading spectacle frame makers in Japan. I had part in concept work, designing drafts, Flash animation, illustration, image processing, HTML/CSS formatting.

Also, production of several individual campaign pages in HTML/CSS and a separate shop-listing page.

The fourth Flyer for the Minimal Tokyo Team. This flyer is designed with the new Minimal Tokyo visual identity. The theme of this party was “Robot”. The flyer was designed as a paper-cut of a robot too. Each assembled robot would win a free drink at the event! Also there was a 1.5m tall giant robot model in front of club welcoming the guests.

Production of a large weblog area for an Alfa Romeo car seller in Tokyo. In total 6 weblogs based on Movable Type. Also design of a landing page which displays the latest entries from each of the individual weblogs (achieved with php, iframes and xml-feeds).

Alfa Romeo`s site design has changed.

This work will be used in the upcoming feature film “Renana” (Japan-made). My task was to design a bogus operating system and a mail applications, which is used by the main protagonist of the movie. I also designed a custom set of icons.

The second part was to design a CCTV monitor screen, with an interactive zooming feature. This work was rendered in Adobe Flash and included animation and scripting.

Identity design for this L.A. clothes in Nerima-ku/Tokyo.

The business-cards come in two variations, one as an official shop card and one as a personal address card with altered address-details. On the flipside of the card is a map with all the important landmarks, on the way to the Oasis shop .

Here are some of the logo-drafts which did not make it into the final round:

The second Flyer for the Minimal Tokyo Team. This flyer is designed with the new Minimal Tokyo visual identity.