Toyo Ito

I am relatively late in discovering the wonders of Toyo Ito the Japanese Architect and Designer, but simply looking at his work you can’t deny his creativity. I found out about this architect when I was investigating the architect behind the VivoCity building in Tokyo (below). This is one of Toyo Ito’s most famous designs.












The more I investigate this building the more that it intrigues me. According to their website “ The name ‘VivoCity’ is derived from the word ‘Vivacity’, evoking a lifestyle experience that is modern stimulating and accessible to everyone”. When you think about this as a type of mission statement for the building, I don’t think they could have selected a better design for the Singapore Construction. From what I can discover without having visited it myself, this building has everything. The 1.5m square foot area that it covers it contains event spaces, promenades, cinemas, shopping and food courts, gyms, a spa, living space etc, the list appears to be endless. The intertwining lines that are both an internal and external design feature make you feel that this is a fun place to live, work and relax, the whole thing screams confidence and playfulness.

This isn’t by any means the first of Ito’s constructions to reach the headlines. The design that drew him into the limelight was Sendai Mediathique. This is another multifunction building but this is done in a different almost more spiritual way. The large open spaces were created to allow a variety of exhibits and events and allow the Mediathique to continually evolve.

Another building I want to mention is his famous ‘Tower of Winds’ which was built in 1986. It’s primary function was to disguise a ventilation tower for an underground shopping centre in Yokohama, Tokyo. Toyo Ito transformed the solely functional construction into a design feature with his innovative ideas. In the day it appears to be an opaque tower (with mirrored plates and aluminium shielding the lights within).


At night this building comes to life, a computer programme controls the ring of neon lights surrounding the tower and allows it to respond to noises and movement from the city above. Technically I am not certain how they accomplished this, but the result is so peculiar and interesting I became less interested in finding out everything about its construction and more interested in finding images of it.


Then there was the Serpentine Pavilion in London, which was constructed in 2002. This is constructed within the grounds of The Serpentine Gallery, the idea of this pavilion was to create a space to be used for anything from film screenings and special programs to a café. It may not be the largest scale of his designs, but I love the lines and spaces that it creates, its hardly what you would call your standard café!

The final design that I want to mention is his design proposal for the Taichung Metropolitan Opera House. Toyo Ito himself said that ““Architecture has to follow the diversity of society, and has to reflect that a simple square or cube can’t contain that diversity.” The building is scheduled for completion in 2009, if the final result comes close to these proposal images, I think it could be a really fascinating place to visit.



I have spent a long time investigating and exploring the work of Toyo Ito. The buildings that I have mentioned are simply some of my favorites, there are many more equally impressive ones around. More than anything I love the creativity that this work shows, you can tell that each design grows from it’s surroundings and is designed to best suit the purpose. I can now understand why this Japanese Artist/Architect is considered “one of the world’s most innovative and influential Architects” (Designboom/Wikipedia)

CocaCola

I love the latest CocaCola advert, it has such a tangible feel of celebration and joy, it makes even me, who can’t stand the drink, tempted into their world. CocaCola is probably one of the most recognised and powerful brands, it must be hard in a way to know what to do next to build on their brand image. Both the website and the advert combine a mixture of graphical styles, from animation, to 3D modelling to photography, so often when you try and do multiple things the end product ends up suffering and not benefiting, thankfully for CocaCola, this is not true here.

The Advert works with the enchanting music to build up anticipation in their fantasy “world of CocaCola”. One thing that struck me when I first saw it was how clever it was from a marketing perspective. With all the legislation and rules surrounding advertising to children, and Coke’s brand image of being more of a young adult’s soft drink, it was never going to target it’s campaign specifically to kids. Having said this the animated style and fairytale like music would not isolate this audience sector either, i.e it’s customers of the future.



The website (http://www.coca-cola.com) is built on a very light hearted plane. There are interactive parts where you are able to create your own image to be left in “the coke side of life” gallery and also a bit which allows you to “discover the happiness” factory behind the advert. Apart from the expected Christmas advert, I don’t really remember that much self publicity launched by CocaCola recently. With this in mind, there was no guaranteeing that “Happiness Factory” campaign would be received well by the public, but from what I have seen this ‘invitation’ into their world has been a definite success.

Pathway, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Leeds

Even the most mundane everyday things can be made a bit more interesting through design.....

Barbie exhibit Prague

This exhibition really is amazing for anybody who does or ever has liked Barbie dolls. It takes up a whole floor of Prague’s Toy Museum and showed not only the changing fashion of Barbie’s costumes over the years, but also less common ones that had been designed by famous names in the industry. I love the amount of detail and care that has gone into making these costumes. You can really see someone like Kyle wearing these in a show, they are the ultimate in showgirl glamour.





While I was looking for these photos, I also noticed following one which I took in Capri, (Italy) last year. I liked the way that the dolls had been used to show the creative glamour that the shop's clothes displayed.

Shop Window Displays

Shop window design is something that if you do it right can be talked of for years, for example most people will remember of the following design by Thomas Heatherwick Studios, even though it was done years ago.


Although not quite on the same scale, I came across these photos that I took of window displays in Paris years ago.





















I think this is a really interesting area of design as people can do anything from the predictable to the outrageous, and in many ways they can be as creative as they like. The photo below is from the Londonist’s review of the 2005 Selfridges Christmas display.


One thing that I can’t help but notice is that both the Prada photo (which was taken 7 years ago) and the more recent Selfridges display would both look striking if seen today, it just shows how good design will always look just that.

Wallace and Gromit, Curse of the Ware Rabbit

When I was younger I used to be a fan of the short films like the ‘Wrong Trousers’ and ‘A close Shave’. I didn’t actually make it to see When ‘The Curse of The Ware Rabbit’ at the cinema, but at the time I remember being surprised when I found out it had received a mixed reception. After going to The ‘Animated Adventures’ exhibition I decided I would see if I could borrow this and finally get round to watching it (it says something that it took me ages to find someone with a copy of the film).


Overall I was actually quite disappointed after watching the Wallace and Gromit’s first feature length film. You would never expect the most realistic or even plausible plot line with this type of film; however, with this in mind I expected to get lost in their world of gadgets and ridiculous scenarios for over an hour. Unfortunately although all the parts were there for this to be a success, the original animator and creator Nick Parks, the same two main characters and a large amount of ‘British-ness’ it somehow didn’t have the same captivating power I expected.

At first I thought it was just because I had grown up since I first watched these shows, but my mum who had also watched the first ones said about 20mins in, they should have stopped at the last one, this isn’t nearly as good. I can’t quite put my finger on what it was that didn’t really work in my opinion, but all I can say is the plot didn’t seam to grab me and although their inventive flair was present, it wasn’t nearly so prominent as in it’s predecessors.

Having said the film did open with one of the best invention sequences I have seen so far, for anyone who hasn’t seen Wallace and Gromit before, they remind me slightly of the Honda advert from a few years ago called the cog, where one small action set off the well planned sequence of movement before it reached the end point. The alarm Clock sequence is similar in this way, it is very much how I remember the old short films to be, there are a few extracts in the following trailer of how it works if your interested.



Overall I wasn’t that impressed with this film, however this was more due to the plot than the animation itself. It was quite refreshing to see the fingerprints in the plastercine, and you could really feel how much attention had gone into creating each individual set and expression. I still like the style of animation, but once again (at the risk of sounding like a broken record) the thing that I love more than anything is the detail that went into creating it.

Skoda Advert

I can't seam to find out who made this, if anyone has any idea please let me know. For some reason I really like this advert, its probably something to do with it reminding me of Hansel and Gretel and as someone before me said Charlie and the Chocolate factory.

The overriding impression you are meant to take from it is that Skoda has carefully thought of and crafted every part of the Fabia. Although this may seam very obvious it's the way they have done this, not only through the concept, but the way it was delivered that I found interesting. The skill that the chefs showed as they were handling the ingredients showed that they genuinely knew what they were doing. The close up shots on their hands and the way the camera moved with them made you feel almost like you were there.

In many ways this advert seams a little predictable, but having said this I can't think of any other advert that is too similar, especially not for a car. I imagine that this will be very successful in reaching an area of the market that the BMW type ads simply pass by.