Over 10 months of work came to a head last week at our Family and Friends event, where ASICS and Onitsuka Tiger debuted our new lifestyle collections as well as a handful of special collaborations at our temporary gallery space in Berlin. To close out the week, Donnis and DE DE MOUSE both took the stage at our closing party, providing what I’m told was one of the highlights of a week packed with events.
I feel like I walked through a whirlwind, but I have to extend my thanks to Dan Solomito and Yuu Kobayashi for being patient and gracious throughout the process, Elisabeth Ouni for joining us for the ride, Karl, the Illustrious One for helping us with the tapes and some word of mouth promotions, Yoske for bringing the venue to life, and of course to the whole ASICS/OT Family.
I’m extremely, extremely proud to present the first song from our upcoming Nippon Sounds project. From the first time the idea was put on the table, we were faced with a lot of challenges and considerable amount of controversy, the least of which was engineering a collaboration between two artists from opposite sides of the world who didn’t speak the same language. Read the rest of this entry »
And the campaign rolls on…
This was a very special piece for us, in addition to being very talented, Ryu is also extremely humble, and gracious, and I think this look into his artistic process shows that.
Creating art out of every day life, isn’t that what we all strive to do?
ASICS/Onitsuka Tiger will be back in Berlin this summer for Fashion Week to show off our newest collections, highlighted as always by our collaboration projects. As you can see on the flyer, collabs with Hanon, Shoes-Up, Tillman Lauterbach and more will be present at this summer’s gallery.
I also PROMISE some surprises at our closing night party.
Big, BIG surprises
My song from our Midori game created by TEAMLAB. TEAMLAB is a group of Ultra Technologists that have been active in Tokyo since 2001. The group consists of a wide diversity of specialists including; Programmers, Network Engineers, Designers, Robot Engineers, Architects, CG Animators, Mathematicians and more. TEAMLAB carries out activities across a range of media, from developing web and robot technology, to installation art, video art and spatial design, making the border between Technology, Art, and Design more ambiguous.
We did a little interview with their leader Toshiyuki Inoko to explain the project, see below:
What is your approach towards “interactive design”?
People often say that men who are good at listening are popular with women but people actually enjoy talking more than just listening “if they could speak well”. To take it one step further, people enjoy expressing something more than just viewing a representation produced by someone else “if they could express it well”.
In the era of the mass media, the job of a designer was to attain a form of expression that was perfect in its quality. That was because the only point of contact with consumers was through mass media channels. However, the advent of the Internet and the networked society is changing the role of the designer. Since consumers enjoy expressing something if they could do so well, I believe that design should be about creating tools that enable people who are not professional creators to create things that make them want to “share it with friends”. It should be about tools that make the process of expression itself, something that they once struggled with, into a process that’s fun and enjoyable. It should be about constructing an environment that allows users to share their creations with friends. That is what I think interactive design is.
A wrap-up of our Family and Friends exhibit in Berlin last week, Koi Klub Founder/Curator/Onitsuka Tiger Collaborator Yoske Nishiumi talks us through the concept, how it came together and of course, having fun. Very inspiring.
The ASICS Europe team spent the week in Berlin for Fashion Week, where we not only appeared at the Bright and Bread and Butter Trade shows, but also gave a preview of our upcoming collaborations and high end collections at our now BiAnnual Family and Friends event. It was an incredible time, no shortage of meetings, but definitely no shortage of free alcohol. Thanks to Jack for the photos
This Friday, ASICS will be celebrating the release of a collaborative project with Amsterdam-based DJ Agency Robin Banks. The Can’t Run Like This EP features 14 tracks on two “sides” one side contains 7 tracks that sample Biggie’s “Gimme Da Loot” while the other 7 tracks sample Kris Kross’ “Jump.”
Sound Mind, Sound Body:
Stimulate The Brain With Music You Love,
To Make The Body Achieve Greater Things.
Mind and Body In Sync, At Their Best – Music As Stimulation.
Love, Music and Running. Get It…
