We felt it was time again to share what’s been cooking at the studio. Below is a summary of last year’s projects (despite challenging pandemic times). But we may also throw a few older projects in the hot pot 🧑🍳
Some projects we shared already are the extensive Tokyo Cheapo (travel site network) redesign and a fun interactive show floor map for BitSummit (the game festival in Kyoto/Japan).
Other projects in the last year and beyond:
Moon Creative Lab
Moon Creative Lab is a venture studio that powers the creation of new businesses for Mitsui & Co. and beyond.
Corporate website for Moon Creative Lab, a new venture to unlock the creativity of Mitsui & Co.’s 45,000 strong global workforce to build innovative businesses. Mitsui & Co., Ltd. is one of the largest sogo shosha (general trading companies) in Japan.
This project is a collaboration with IDEO Tokyo. We were in charge of the Japanese-English bilingual web development part (frontend and backend). First the website only existed as static responsive HTML5 and was later integrated with WordPress CMS as well as the Greenhouse jobs board app 🧑💻
GLOBIS Insights
GLOBIS Insights offers top quality articles from business leaders across all industries and regions of the world 🗞️
A project for GLOBIS University, Japan’s largest business school and one of the largest in Asia. Information architecture, graphic design and UI/UX design for this news companion site. The design largely follows our previously created style guide for Globis University.
University of Tokyo
A project for University of Tokyo (Todai) which is considered to be the most selective and prestigious university in Japan.
We developed a support website for the Active English department at Komaba campus. This site covers several functions, such as online booking of writing tutors, large sortable listing of lab equipment, viewing of video tutorials, download of resources and more.
Tasks were information architecture & wireframing, graphic design, UI/UX design, website development and client training 🎓
Ogasawara Foundation
We were invited to participate in a remunerated logo & branding contest by the Ogasawara Toshiaki Memorial Foundation (小笠原敏晶記念財団). The foundation provides scholarship for students and researchers in science and technology, as well as cultural & artistic leaders.
We created 5 logo drafts and fleshed out written concepts for this project which involved graphic design & illustration. Ultimately a competitor was awarded the winning entry, but we had fun with this one! 🖍️
Google Adwords
For Google’s Adwords product we created seasonal illustrations for advertising. Amongst the local festivities which were covered are Ramadan and Diwali 🙏
SPC Communications
For SPC Communications, a consulting, training, writing, and publishing company, we created a fresh corporate identity design based on a bridge concept. We further created business cards, letterheads, envelopes, presentation templates and infographics.
Tasks involved brand design, graphic design, illustration, print layout, illustration and others 🌉
Temple University
We had the pleasure to update the English and Japanese TUJ Undergraduate Brochures and Flyers since a few years now and this year was no different. They involved graphic design, layout design and image retouching and pre-press handling. You can find out more details in our existing project post 📙
MISC.
Some projects we can’t share in detail due to NDAs:
- UI design & responsive frontend development of a high-end tourist website for a popular region in Japan.
- Whitepaper digital PDFs and print design for a global payment service provider.
- Branding design for a catering/gastro startup in Japan.
- Branding, illustration and design guideline for a Saas CMS startup in Japan.
- Graphic design, illustration, animation & print design for a global top 10 NPO.
- Illustration of a highly detailed infographic for a leading Japanese pharmaceutical company.
Bento Graphics Inc.
Branding Update
After quite some thought we replaced our trusted brand font GT Walsheim by Grilli Type with Mabry Pro by Colophon Foundry. Some notes about this font:
With one foot amidst the idiosyncratic forms of the late 19th Century grotesques / grotesks, and the other among the rational maths of early 20th Century geometric sans-serifs, Mabry posits itself as several things at once: simultaneously contemporary and historic, rigorous and gestural, objective and subjective, cultivated and imprecise; refined and coarse all at once.
Also our logo lettering has a new treatment 😎
