Semitransparent Design – commonly shortened to “Semitra” – is a creative team attracting much attention for its projects integrating the Internet with conventional communication methods. Their “Live Color Wall Project” website promoting SONY’s BRAVIA brand and “akarium Call Project” for illumination of Omotesando Street in Tokyo are just two examples of their blend of Internet and real spaces. Their creative activities have been recognized with receipt of numerous prominent awards including the Cannes Lions Award in Advertising, a New York ADC Award and D&AD Award.
Their forthcoming exhibition at CREATION Gallery G8 will introduce visitors to Semitra’s recent web projects, with a focus on the “fFont/fTime” installations about time and fonts shown at Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM) in 2009. We eagerly invite visitors to come and experience how Semitra creates design from the web, developing new means of communication bringing together network systems, graphics and a host of new technologies.
About “tFont/fTime”
In 2008 Semitra introduced “tFont,” their original two-dimensional typeface with an added element of time, at NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC). Dots of light arranged in seemingly random patterns actually describe the shapes of letters that can be read only when photographed with long exposure (see photo in middle row, at right). This concept was further developed at their first solo show, “tFont/fTime: Typeface with a Temporal Element” at YCAM in 2009. Here, in an installation on the theme of “time and fonts” participants play records on turntables, and through scratches and other operations letters on the screen become distorted and “decomposed.”
Web designer and Head Designer of Semitransparent Design, Ryoji Tanaka graduated from Doshisha University (Faculty of Engineering) and the International Academy of Media Arts and Science. He is active in a broad palette of media, especially web-based media, performing everything from corporate branding and ad planning and production to exhibition of his works at art museums and galleries in Japan and abroad. His recent endeavors include planning of “Illuminating Graphics” at CREATION Gallery G8 and “Semitransparent Design: Boring/Bored” at ginza graphic gallery (ggg).
Semitransparent Design
Active since 2003, Semitransparent Design is a team of three designers (Ryoji Tanaka, Hiroshi Sato, Emiko Kashiwagi), a device developer (Toshiyuki Sugai) and two programmers (Yusuke Shibata, Shunya Hagiwara). The team creates numerous online ads incorporating its unique design methodology linking the real and networked worlds. Among the many awards Semitransparent Design has received for their ad creations are a New York ADC Award, D&AD Award, Tokyo Interactive Ad Award, Cannes Lions Award in Advertising, CLIO Award, One Show Award, and London International Advertising Award. The team’s activities have recently broadened to include areas such as their installation exhibition at NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC) in 2008 and their first solo show at Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM) in 2009.
Exhibits
Exhibited items will include Semitransparent Design’s installations on the themes of “font” and “time” shown at NTT ICC and YCAM as well as their web projects of recent years.
