So you’re saying that this desire for a “line
feed” in yourself is what motivated you to start the project?
Pretty much. Also, the word “NEWLINE” also applies to the fine lines or
hairlines used in the project. I do in the same sense as when I’m drawing an engineering plan or just sketching lines for my
editorial work. Most other designers start with grids and then proceed with the
design according to those lines. But I got my start sketching massive amounts
of lines with mechanical pencils and other drawing tools back in my student
days, so even when doing editorial work it felt like I was drafting. Here’s an example: I used to make lots of fonts in the past, but I didn’t really view them in that way, since based on what their outlines
resembled they were more like clusters of curves and straight lines. So I was
like, “I guess that’s more like drafting.”
What would you do if someone came to you now with an
offer to take on a whole magazine?
Honestly it’d put me in a pretty tough spot. It’s hard to explain, but if I were to describe my graphic art as if it
were music, the first thing I think of is what format I’ll use. So digital, CD, vinyl, or even live performance. And if I’m going to do a live concert, that then means I need to choose things
like the venue, space, acoustics, sound setup, and so on to ensure I’m delivering my music to the audience in the best environment
possible. But then the songs themselves are also composed to suit the format,
so tracks made for CD would need to be arranged to be played live. Something
very similar to all that exists within my graphic art as well. So with this in
mind, I’m not sure that editorial design is the best
format for me at this time. That said, the work I did do editorial design for
pictorial books as part of the work I did for Espace Louis Vuitton from 2011 to
2015, mainly because I heard they were going to be distributed for free.
That’s similar to what you did with SAL Magazine, but what do you love so
much about having things be free?
This goes back to what I was talking about earlier, but I feel there’s something fun about being able to just pick up an actual object
like a flier for a club and be like, “Hey, this is cool.” This is especially
true when it comes to editorial stuff. But I’m also attracted to really expensive books
that are worth their value. To put it the other
way around, there’s also people out there forcibly
creating work by selling the types of books that make me think, “Who needs
something like this?” for high prices. I don’t like
that kind of stuff at all.
Going
back to the Espace Louis Vuitton project
you touched upon briefly, can give us some more details of how it came about?
In 2011 Louis Vuitton opened an exhibition space in Tokyo by holding an
inaugural show by French artist Xavier Veilhan. They were going to need
graphics for the visuals, the decorations, the catalogs, and all that other stuff, the director and Veilhan came all the way over from Paris.
The project is still on-going, and up until 2015 I was in charge of a lot of
the visuals and graphics for it. The persons in charge at
Louis Vuitton really understood my work and the exchanges we had helped me
learn a lot, like them telling me which of my ideas to expand upon a bit more.
This also goes back to the example of music I was using earlier, but if I have
something made initially as kind of a “heat of the moment” thing, like even the
smallest of ideas, strangely enough it always sounds different than before if
you try to go back and play it again later. I find that very interesting. Then
you can go and update with different instruments or tempos. I used that kind of
approach quite often when doing the visuals for Espace Louis Vuitton.