Mixed Media Missive: Name Cards and Stickers in Japan

A few weeks ago I needed some name cards and used a DIY AVERY kit I had for many years to make up a few.  Actually needed them before then, and didn't have any. Not having really gone out much in the previous 3 years had numbed my sense of their significance in Japan.

The only issue is the AVERY cards look DIY. The card thickness, and edges is the big give away.

As this is Japan, which is still the land of the Meishi (Business Card), I needed a proper card. Again. Even if  "retired"!  When you leave a company, they take your business cards from you. A thing that displayed your position and status. What company you worked for carries more weight than you might think, even if what you achieved isn't up for casual conversation. Dressing appropriately and being polite,  not speaking too casually, are also really important, and probably not just Kyoto.😀

A refresher course on the giving of your business card and receiving theirs:

I had so may older unused ones at home though, with different positions (and name spellings!) on them from over the years. Not that they could be used any more.

For my new name cards, I wanted the contact details to be big, as I am at an age where I can't read them on a standard card with the text size they use with my glasses on.  An old man problem. 

The old question:

Japan has a long tradition of name cards/ calling cards. Senjafuda are those name stickers all over shrines.  They had a rather different format than the modern business card, being a sticker.

Since doing the DIY name cards, I came across the online Sticker Japan  ( and raksul ,  mojoprint , oneprint  and others ) for  having Stickers and Business Cards made in quantities, from artwork you upload. Raksul also does T-SHIRTs, but have no idea of the quality, as their boast of being the cheapest isn't actually a good thing for me. I have yet to find out if one is better than the other. 

I am still waiting on the FREE sample pack of sticker samples and business cards from StickerJapan to be able to see the materials. Whois search indicates the dns is registered and owned by someone in the UK , so quality probably isn't their focus.  I had expected to get this pack 2 days ago, and it didn't come in the mail today either. This isn't encouraging. One of the 3 reviews on there Facebook page is 粗悪な印刷物を納品して対応なし (Delivered inferior printed materials and no response). Some are printed in Incheon South Korea.

There are many places online, but would I trust the Sponsored, top of the list places? No.

Anyway... 

I have designed stickers and business cards for customers at various times, and find the option of designing my own attractive. But as my freelance illustration work is purely online, I have never needed, or made, or used, a Business Card for it. But when you are given a card here, you need to give something back.

Some earlier concepts of a sticker, my Heavy Metal Garage Sticker  (I used Sticker Mule in the USA) and reference designs for size and materials:

After considering Name Card and color sticker options and costs, these are my likely designs. Unexpectedly, a customer that wanted things done 2 weeks ago when I was busy, didn't get back to me this week after I emailed I could do their job now, so had plenty of time to consider my own project. 

 Production files are .AI from Illustrator CS3 in my case:

A Name Card is purely to give out basic contact and name info in the standard 91mm x 55mm Japanese format. Best way for me to remember the persons name for more than 4 seconds after meeting them! Minimum order quantity is 100.  Exchanging business Cards is a ritual in Japan 😀.

The Sticker is more an "about me" thing, and I am likely to meet very few people to ever give one away to.  But you never know. So far this year I could have given away, maybe a sticker and 7 name cards.

In looking at the options for stickers, materials and quantities I am thinking Outdoor PVC "bumper sticker" material and making only 10 initially. 10 could be a "rest of my life" quantity😐 .  I looked at 60mm x 60mm round & square formats but decided that an 80mm x 55 mm design means they can be carried with my name cards and fit in my phone case.

This year, 2024, I have been given more business cards and met more new people than I have in the previous 8 years.

An issue I always had as an employee that rarely met anyone to gave out a business card to, was the few in my Wallette always got bent and did not make a good impression when I gave one to someone unexpectedly. The last 3 places I worked in Australia as an employee didn't give me a company business card at all. 

But this being Japan means there are many card carrying case options.  And this doesn't include the expensive leather cases a Business man could lust over.

When I go "out" now I always take a shoulder bag or a back pack, depending on where and for how long I will be out, and now keep a business card case containing my cards and stickers in all of them. So no matter which one I grab, I will be prepared. At the moment, just with my DIY Name Cards and the Heavy Metal Garage stickers.

StickerJapan sample pack arrived. All look great. Took 10 days, and comes from South Korea.

I could put my color sticker design on the back of my Name Card. But for most people I give it too, that would be too much information. A plan Name Card means I can stick a few color stickers to the back of some, and achieve a similar result.  Gives me options.  Way over thinking this  😁. 

And 100 cards arrived 9 days after placing order and paying from South Korea. They look good.

We will now wait another 8 days to see how the color stickers come out 😀, but these are more important. Wish I had made them end of 2023.  I now have a metal and a Leather card holder. More important than you probably think.

And the stickers arrived. Matte Paper. All look very good. Just as expected.  A bad review on the internet may have been done for reasons that have nothing to do with do they do good work or not!

More about the customer didn't prepare their files correctly.

And the why of the sticker: 

Then we made some MEGACURVE stickers, and they arrived in 3 days. Great quality'

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

2024/6/13: Yasuhiko Yoshikazu Exhibit Hyogo (兵庫県立美術館)

 

Went to the Hyogo Prefecture Museum of Art  (兵庫県立美術館, Hyōgo Kenritsu Bijutsukan) for Yasuhiko Yoshikazu: Divine Animator and Draftsman.

I first heard of him from his episode of Urasawa Noaki's Manben neo NHK E TV series. This showed his astounding draftsmanship, even at 76, were he didn't need to do any rough working lines, and just drew the scene. Started characters with their eyebrows. He also didn't storyboard anything first. He put that down to originally working as an animator, where there was no time for rough line work. He had only later become a "history based - truth is stranger than fiction" manga creator.

It was his original manga pages that I wanted to see. The kind of thing that wasn't on display at Nagano san's Nagoya Exhibit I attended last month.

Hyogo is almost a 2 hour train trip, using normal (not the Shinkansen) trains from home. I had to switch from Express to Local trains a few times to get there in a reasonable time.  It isn't that far on a nice day, and not that expensive, under 3,000 yen. I don't know exactly what each leg cost, as I only check how much money I have left on my travel card when I exit a station, and soon forget what a leg actually cost. 

The Hyogo Prefecture Museum of Art has a frog wearing a hat on the roof. The place is also referred to as HAT. A 10 minute down a slight slope walk or so from Nada JR station. This is my second visit. The first was in 2018 with my wife to a Ghibli exhibit.

The only photo I took in the exhibit was of this cartoon he did of him self on the VIP visitor message board.  He signs all his work YAS, a detail like that is interesting to me.

This was because no one else was taking photos and almost all the works on display are in the massive 415 page show Catalog book. So I bought that, and just stared in awe at his draftsmanship, penwork and brush stroke technique on display in the original artworks. Lots of original pages with screen tone and speech balloon text, and original watercolor covers.

He had wanted to become a Mangaka, but that originally didn't work out for him, so he became an animator instead, and later animation director.

He was an animator for the original Gundam, Crusher Joe and other things. Many of his storyboards, key frames, concept roughs, character designs and painted illustrations were on display from these productions. These were probably what many visitors were focused on, and had that nostalgic pull for them. I haven't seen any of them.

He eventually lost interest in animation and returned to his first love, creating his own manga.  I think it is because he didn't own the IP of the animation he worked on, that he isn't so widely known outside Japan. Or maybe because it was Gundam he worked on?

I attend these exhibits to inspire my own creations. This exhibit certainly did that and was truly awesome. So much work on display from a single creator. Wonderful.  Luckily there were benches to rest my weary legs for the last half of the exhibit . 

I really love that I can get to these far flung Art Galleries incredibly cheaply and quickly.

Travelling by train is just so very convenient in Japan, and I listen to music all the way. I actually had Freak Kitchen's new Everybody Gets Bloody on constant repeat for much of it. Thank you IA.

Next exhibit planning to attend is GIANT ROBOTS, that gets to my local THE MUSEUM OF KYOTO second week of July. Only 35+ minutes away.

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Re-watched Zeiram for first time in 33 years

 

So re-watched Zeiram for first time in 33 years. First time was on a Laserdisc, this time on a second hand DVD.

The director likes, action, SF design, monsters, stop frame animation, comedy, and he stuck all that in while "borrowing" from James Cameron and Ridley Scott.

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Other Comics, that aren't

 

Making a bust of Zeiram 2's IRIA from the optional part.

Cool MAVE AI figther in Frankenstrat Camo

Tiny Gashapon Powered Amor Diorama

Making 1/8 scale Babylon 5's Delenn

I posted these to a Facebook Modelling Group, rather than just text and a bunch of pictures, like you normally would. 

I would prefer to try something else in my own format, so I did.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Cars Music-Comic: Still haven't found what I am looking for...

 

Cars: 30 second Music-Comic thing. Still haven't found what I am looking for. More a comic, music, sound effect "vibe" in this.

Trying to just throw out "interesting" (for me to do at least) music-comic things hoping to come up with a THATS IT! format.

For weeks now have been mucking around with melodic techno drums and bass combined with heavy/metal guitar and synths. Trying to make ”my music style" for these things. Haven't found IT, but think some bits of those I have made so far and interesting.

Saw latest Mad Max and re-watched parts of Furry Road, and that V8 engine sound is awesome, and the major reason that engine sound is featured here. Has emotional impact to a lot of people.

I have done a lot of illustrations of V8 cars and know there is an attraction to that very raw, very American Muscle Car sound. Supercharging it just triples the fun. The 2 cars in the music-comic are part of the design of an Australian car club t-shirt I have done, and just noticed I don't have it as a sample on our website. Done in the Ed Roth style, like the book illustration above, but featuring 2 classic Australian Muscle Cars, a Ford and a Holden.

Doing full animation just takes too long. Moving a few still images around is fast though, so what we do here. The timing of word balloons is just never right when put in a video like this, but this one has a fair compromise. They look better when visuals have a connection to the music/soundtrack, but the only thing that does here is the CARS text being animated to the engine sfx, cause that is easy/fast

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Mixed Media Missive: FURIOSA 2024/5/31

 

So I went to the cinema for the second time this year to catch FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA.

I thought it was good, and worked well, fitting in with FURY ROAD.

It isn't just FURY ROAD Part 0, which I think is a good thing.  The awesome, terrifying cars, and some new vehicles are there too. What an original thing these movies are.

Case in point, the DOOF WARRIOR!

And due to the internet surveillance we are all under I was soon offered videos on the making of the MAD MAX movies and other resources, such as the 500 page FURY ROAD storyboard pdf.

The whole original movie was storyboarded, and constructed from the stunts and visuals out. The way it is edited, with the focus of the frame being kept consistent between cuts makes it easy to follow, yet high action.  It won many Academy Awards, and all that still resulted in problems making this latest movie, a decade later.

I saw FURIOSA on the local TOHO cinemas biggest screen in Dolby ATMOS, the first session, 10AM Friday morning. There were more people attending than most of the films I have seen at this same time in recent years, maybe 40 or so.  I can't see how these movie complexes will survive. Streaming is just so much more convenient most of the time. They must have management that doesn't believe in capitalisms infinite growth. 

Dolby ATMOS has ceiling speakers (which they light up in green so you see where your money is going until the movie starts!) , as well as the side and front speakers, and a more sophisticated sound positioning technology.

What I find strange, is that if a movie has DOLBY ATMOS sound, and is presented on this screen, you are charged 100 yen extra for it, for little benefit much of the time.  Dolby has gotten very aggressive in royalty charges. Especially in the music side of their business.   

The movie was quite the spectacle.  But I did have quite the headache after coming home. The sound wasn't too loud. Not sure if eyestrain, or just from dehydration as I am careful to not drink too much before a 2.5 hour movie like this.  

The morning movie session finishes right in peak lunch time. Most restaurants have ques of customers waiting at 12:45, but I had a no wait option.  

The BURGERLION American Style Diner was empty, and that suits me, but expect they will not stay in business much longer. Or till the next time I go to the cinema. Had the Bacon Burger above. 1,700yen is really expensive, and it is large, so no wonder they don't have any customers, but that is what makes the place attractive to me.  Burger was a bit too salty, but still good, but the meat patty had some tuff bits in it. They had the option to eat it with a knife and fork now. This was a step forward for me.  

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology