Travelling around Japan earlier this year has got me seriously falling in love with the country’s beautiful places, people, food and culture. Give me a little nudge, a gentle reminder of Nippon life and I’m easily thrown into a nostalgia-induced state of wanderlust and itching to jump on the next flight eastward. Thus, I was more than fair game for Tokyo-based Swiss graphic designers Julien Mercier and Julien Wulff, who yanked me from my daily routine with excellent poster project YamanoteYamanote. Following the eponymous circular train line that whirls around the bustling metropolis and serves downtown hotspots Shibuya, Shinjuku or Akihabara, the duo creates two corresponding designs for each of the 29 Yamanote stations and their characteristic surroundings. Every new design, combining minimalism, hushed colours, a clever mix of Japanese kanji and Latin letters, is then presented at a one-time exhibition at a venue near each station.
素晴らしい!
Keep up to date with the Yamanote Yamanote project here:
INTOSHALLOWDEPTHS 