Graphic Design & Web Design from Tokyo - Bento Graphics

Website redesign for Sophia University Tokyo (上智大学) - Graduate Program in Global Studies, one of the leading Japanese universities and famous for its international climate.

The Graduate Program in Global Studies was founded in 2006 at Sophia University, one of Japan’s private universities. Its English-taught curriculum offers M.A. degrees in Global Studies, International Business and Development Studies, and Japanese Studies, as well as a Ph.D in Global Studies. The program’s location in central Tokyo enhances classroom and research activities, and internship and employment for students.

As design concept we focused on global cities as part of global culture. The unique skylines of global cities i.e. Tokyo, New York, London, Shanghai and many more are used as header graphics for the website. The overlapping skylines are meant to express the „interconnectedness of global cities (including Tokyo) and culture“ (our starting phrase for the design concept). The header graphic consists of a static Tokyo skyline with always two other semi-transparent skylines graphics overlapping. The other two skyline graphics are chosen by a random script which will create a great variety of visual combinations.

The menu uses Javascript for the hover-effect, exposing the sub-menu items on mouse-rollover and always highlights the correctly selected parent category. The project also included the coding of standards compliant validated XHTML/CSS templates and the project management of the implementation into the Drupal CMS framework.