From Ayaka Ito:
…placeholder for something profound
Archives for category: Ideas
I’m a huge fan of the original wallpapers from The Fox is Black (formerly Kitsune Noir). The illustrative pop style of many of the wallpapers rather reminds me of Threadless designs, which is a very good thing! With many beautiful wallpapers from different artists, you’re sure to find something unique to dress up your desktop.
I’ve hoarded many a wallpaper from the TFIB Project, but here is a quick overview of the results from my recent forage:
The Desktop Wallpaper Project featuring Philipp Dornbierer
The Desktop Wallpaper Project featuring Jared Chapman
Sights & Sounds Presents Broken Social Scene: ‘Broken Social Scene’ by Matias Palacios-Hardy
Continuing my Victorian anime kick after finishing Earl and Fairy, I decided to give Gosick a try. My first impressions of Gosick are fairly positive after the first three episodes, or the hunting of the hares mini-arc. I had zero expectations for Gosick as a detective series, which worked in its favor because the deductive trappings are pretty weak. I guessed the murderer in the first episode almost as soon as the crime happened, and in fact the mechanics of the murder were quickly explained a minute later. It becomes quickly apparent that Gosick is not a series that sticks to the conventional mystery framework of devoting whole episodes to discovering alibis, clues, motives, red herrings and so forth. You’d be sorely disappointed in Gosick if you go into it expecting something like Detective Conan. It’s really more appropriate to think of Gosick as a period drama that very loosely follows a mystery framework. The strength of this series lies in the art, which is no surprise from a Studio Bones production, as well as the budding relationship between Victorica and Kazuya. Not the mystery.
Anyways, I was tickled pink to see that the OP for Gosick was done in art nouveau! Bones has made some great OPs, but this one is just gorgeous. The screenshots don’t do the animation justice – you really have to see the art move to fully appreciate it!
Came across Wildgrounds’ list of alternative Japanese animation a couple days ago and decided to give the videos a watch. Some were trippy, some were sweet, but they were certainly all different and worth checking out. Of the videos listed, I particularly enjoyed Mount Head and Day of Nose because the animation were more narrative-driven as opposed to style-driven (although both were stylish in their own way), but the one that resonated with me the most was Akino Kondoh‘s Ladybirds’ Requiem. Fluid, elegant, yet nostalgic at the same time, this may be one of the most beautifully surreal pieces of animation that I’ve seen in recent years.
I finally managed to watch The Princess and the Frog with the bf and really, really enjoyed the movie. It was such a nice throwback to the heydays of traditional Disney animation, with lovable characters constantly bursting into song, a well-paced storyline, and a really heartwarming ending. I was especially impressed by the “Almost There” sequence, with its beautifully fluid animation that hearkened back to the era of Art Deco and jazz 
I’ve been looking at Japanese album covers lately for design inspiration, and I googled mink on a whim, mostly because I remembered seeing her e+motion album cover posted to Animepaper as a NANA scan:
I actually have no idea why this cover was tagged as a NANA scan, because as far as I can tell none of mink’s songs were ever used for the NANA series – not to say mink couldn’t have been inspired by Ai Yazawa’s work, of course. I’m also not sure who illustrated these album covers, but I suspect that mink herself might be the actual designer. In any case, these cover illustrations are really quite beautiful. I love the stark simplicity, the movement of the lines, and the abundant negative space.
Pixel Ellipsis was really dragging for me day before yesterday, so I went through the multitude of plugins that I had installed in my plugin-happy stage and killed a few of them. I think it’s helped with site performance, although my ISP also blocked me from accessing the site most of yesterday and part of today as well, so I’m not sure if it was just me. Let me know if the site has been excruciatingly slow for you!
On a side note, I missed Halloween and Thanksgiving while I was overseas (not that either is really celebrated here in Australia). But now that I’m back, I’m oddly addicted to Halloween scans like this one:
Clearly my raging addiction to Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is still alive and well. I also managed to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas for the first time on the plane! 
Sadly I haven’t been keeping up with the World Cup, mostly because it’s not showing on cable in our apartment. Uber lame, I know. But I still got a huge kick out of Paul the (Oracle) Octopus, who has been splashing across major news sites like BBC News, Boston Globe, and Forbes for his 100% prediction rate for Germany so far.
And here’s a video of the actual moment of prophecy haha -
Does anyone else get a kick out of the idea of a mollusk prophet who can commune with the soccer gods?
P.S. ZOMG Germany beat England 4-1! AM SRSLY IN LOVE WITH THE OCTOPUS NOW YES I AM
I was actually looking for more info on these awesome looking Cupmen (which hold down instant noodle lids and turn white once the noodles have finished cooking – cool right?!) when I stumbled onto Spoon & Tamago. And I promptly fell in love with the blog, because author Johnny Strategy has an impeccable eye for the quirky and charming in Japanese design. Browsing through the blog was a real treat for the eyes and feast for the mind!
Apart from the forementioned cupmen:
I was also very taken with these little wooden magnets that look like delicious pebble-buttons. As Johnny said, “The smooth, rounded surface beckons you to touch and caress it. Looking at them lined up makes me want to put one in my mouth.”
But the tree page-markers were probably my favorite – such brilliant conceptual design by artist Megumi Takahashi!
Anyways, if any of the above caught your eye then I would highly recommend a browse through Spoon & Tamago – it’s sure to inspire!