Kinky Gaijin

Namaiki [namaiki.com] are naughty (well, that’s a rough translation, anyway). It’s also kind of tricky describing what it is they actually do… As a team headed by David Duval-Smith and Michael Frank, they often work as artists building installations out of found objects (the images above are from a recent ‘ongoing’ installation at the Hara Museum for Modern Art [haramuseum.or.jp]).

This makes up just a tiny proportion of their overall creative output which has included set design and interior decoration on Tokyo’s public transport system (utilising their signature collection of patterns), customised Snoopy sculptures for the recent Peanuts 55th Anniversary exhibition [flickr.com/pingmag] as well as graphics (including motion graphics) for clients such as Super Deluxe [super-deluxe.com] amongst loads of other crazy projects. Namaiki’s current preoccupation with nature, choas and the environment has led to the curious Kinky Muff Land Project [via vvork].

Maybe starting out as strangers in a strange land (or ‘Gaijin’ [see pingmag]) has helped them develop this fluid way of meshing design and art together. It possibly helps that many designers working in Japan are referred to as simply ‘Creators’. What I really want to know though is where’s the official Namaiki compendium? C’mon, you cheeky scamps, surely the time is right to put some of your works down on paper.