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Kai

@kai.levan

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Creative Technologist
@ifmparis
Posting about design & visual culture.
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As a high-school student, Katsuhiro Otomo took his drawings to Tokyo. A manga artist and a Futabasha editor told him to get in touch once he had finished school. He did, and Futabasha took him on. His first manga, A Gun Report, ran in Futabasha’s Manga Action in 1973, an adaptation of Prosper Mérimée’s story Mateo Falcone. Domu followed in 1980 and won the Nihon SF Taisho in 1983. In 1983 and 1984 he designed characters for TV commercials: Canon’s T70 camera, the bulldog for the Honda City Turbo II, and Suntory. Akira ran in Weekly Young Magazine from 1982 to 1990, and he directed the film in 1988. In 2018 Kanye West posted a photo of him holding a pair of Yeezys and called the film his biggest creative inspiration. In 2015 the Angoulême festival gave him its Grand Prix, and as tradition has it, he drew the poster for the next year’s festival. Asked in 2012 whether it puts pressure on him that other creators cite his work so often, he said: „No, no pressure. I really doubt people are following and referencing my work like that.“ If you want to go deeper, check out: Paul Gravett: Katsuhiro Otomo profile Anime News Network 2012: interview at the Platform Animation Festival Midnight Eye 2006: interview with Otomo Forbes 2017, Ollie Barder: an interview with Otomo OTOMO THE COMPLETE WORKS (Kodansha) by @kai.levan
17
3 days ago
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@ronnie.cooke.newhouse art directed the CDG SHIRT ads, and her work is known for an inventive, playful aesthetic. Before that she was one of the founding editors of Details, then ran the advertising at @barneysny and @calvinklein . She describes the work in terms of humour. At Barneys she was after „a combination of beauty and humour“, and she says putting humour into fashion was a scary thing to do, because it was still always about selling. For anyone who wants to go more in depth: @systemmagazine , issue 11, interview by @thomaslenthal on the Barneys years with @stevenmeiselofficial and Glenn O’Brien (@lordrochester) @theimpression_ — interview by Mark Hooper, on how she thinks about images Every visual here has its own origin and creator. I credit them in the video when I know. If you spot one I missed and know where it’s from, DM me or tag them in the comments. by @kai.levan
16
16 days ago
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Credits to @madanivision for the macOS inspiration. I’ve loved JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure for years, mostly for the way it looks. The poses, the colours, the clothes. Nothing else in manga looks like it. Araki has said himself that he’d been referencing fashion from the start, especially eighties Versace. Readers have since paired hundreds of his panels with real campaigns and editorials. Eventually, it went the other way. The Louvre invited him to make a manga and exhibited the first pages in 2009. Gucci commissioned him three times. His artworks filled the windows of over seventy Gucci stores in 2013. Every visual here has its own origin and creator. I credit them in the video when I know. If you spot one I missed and know where it’s from, DM me or tag them in the comments. by @kai.levan
33
17 days ago
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In 1990, Rei Kawakubo handed Comme des Garçons HOMME to a former engineer. Keiichi Tanaka studied engineering at Tokai University and wrote his thesis on fluid dynamics, building the equipment by hand. His father was an engineer too. He worked three years in the job and quit, because it left no room for creativity. What changed his mind was a fishing shop in Shintomi-chō. The owner had been a graphic designer and closed his office to sell tackle. The customers were photographers and copywriters, and Tanaka would stay talking to them after the shop shut. He said that was when he realised it was alright not to be a company employee. He went to Bunka Fashion College, spent six years as an assistant designer, and in 1990 joined Comme des Garçons. Kawakubo told him two things: make clothes with good taste, and don’t compromise. She never interfered with his designs or his materials. He said it felt like being dropped in the middle of a field. He ran HOMME for thirteen years. Everything was made in Japan, because he said it couldn’t be made well anywhere else. Sometimes five samples before one was good enough to sell. His mill was Orimono Kenkyusha, who he called collaborators rather than suppliers. He left in 2003. In 2010 he started his own label, KONTRA PUNKT. — I have a few pieces from this era and they’re some of my favourite things I own. If you want to go deeper, check out: MR High Fashion 1997 and 2002: two interviews with Tanaka DANSEN 1993: Kawakubo and Tanaka in the same feature Seiō 2000: his university alumni magazine, best on the engineering years @generalwasteshop : the magazine scans Yamada Kōji, 90s-fashion-japan: the garment photos Metonym: video on him by @kai.levan
14
20 days ago
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Before I started working at @studio.parc I had never heard of @aredotna . Now I can‘t think of doing a project without it, every idea gets one place where everything lives: my own notes, podcasts, articles, videos, imagery. All of it together, and I actually find it again. Every visual here has its own origin and creator, I credit them in the video when I know. If you spot one I missed and know where it’s from, DM me or tag them in the comments. Lmk your thoughts 👇 by @kai.levan
6
2 months ago
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Too Many Humans? I met @f00lish.mast3rm1nd and @sebtiew , the two behind @centreforresearch , at an event with @nottooooooday in Paris and their book „Too Many Humans“ has been stuck in my head since. Ten real spaces, from dark kitchens to an influencer factory in Jakarta, all optimised for machines and metrics instead of the people inside them. And the way it’s shown might be my favourite part: every space is presented as architectural drawings and photographed 3D reconstructions, completely empty of people. The book is designed by @_y7_y7_y7_ (@hannnah__c and Declan Colquitt), with essays from @tonyskup , @rrrrrruuuuuubbbbbbzzzzzz , @_y7_y7_y7_ , @felstead.daniel and @maria_paez_gonzalez . Lmk your thoughts 👇 by @kai.levan
4
2 months ago
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CORRECTION: some of the ads shown here, specifically the Comme des Garçons SHIRT campaigns, weren't made by Inoue. They were art-directed by Ronnie Cooke Newhouse (House & Holme), and photographed by Roe Ethridge (Pigeon). CDG's identity is the work of many hands: Rei Kawakubo herself, other art directors, and the photographers and artists along the way all deserve credit too. I got into Comme des Garçons through the ads, so I went looking for who actually made them. Turns out a lot of them, through the late 80s and 90s, came from Tsuguya Inoue. And it wasn't just CDG. He also did Parco, YMO, the Ryuichi Sakamoto album cover, and beyond that, I find the scale of his work impressive. by @kai.levan
36
3 months ago
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A24 x Google DeepMind. The announcement barely explains anything, I’m sceptical. Lmk what you think! 👇 by @kai.levan
2
3 months ago
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Last week I was at CRAFTED, at Espace Niemeyer in Paris. 200 of the leading people in the creative industry coming together, and some interesting insights. This one’s on the talk by @servicesgeneraux about AI in image-making, and some of it might surprise you. Big thanks to the founder @benjaminbenichoustudio and to @311labs , @mastersof.ai , @florafaunaai and @artistandthemachine for helping make it happen. Curious what you think? Let me know 👇 by @kai.levan
7
3 months ago
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What is a raccoon doing in a fashion ad?? That was lowkey my first reaction to Comme des Garçons. It has been one of my favorite brands for a while now, and a big reason for that is how they advertise. A lot of the times they don’t even shoot the image, they take a photo or an artwork that already exists and just run it as a campaign. Calling it logo-slapping misses the point imo. Putting your name on someone else’s art only works if the curation is that careful, and theirs has been for decades. by @kai.levan
7
3 months ago
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I first saw @gentlemonster a few years ago in Korea and I haven’t been able to shake it since. Those surreal, unsettling spaces that drop you into another universe, and that feeling never left me. The part that gets me is they’re a huge brand now and still refuse to play it safe. It would be so easy to repeat what already works, but every space and every campaign stays challenging and weird. Doing that at their size is the hard part, and playing it safe would’ve been the real mistake. by @kai.levan
17
4 months ago
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by @kai.levan
0
8 months ago
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