Early November, we saw Tokyo boiling with uncountable design events: during Design Week the latest designs from all over the world were showcased in Tokyo. Along with other events Swedish Style Tokyo has been held almost every year since 1999 and is certainly one - if not the - most popular of all events. Recent Swedish culture, design meetings and discussions, artists, DJs, chefs, furniture, funny Swedish ideas and their promoters…. everything Swedish seemed to gather in Tokyo. No wonder we got to meet so many Swedes in town all of a sudden! Here’s the report on this year’s Swedish Style Tokyo along with Sweden’s prod music label DNM (Dealers of Nordic Music) ultimate Nordic Lounge Radio Channel for BGM.

Written by Kaori Nishida
Front related photos by Anna Lönnerstam

Not to miss was the exhibition “Sketch Furniture” by Front exhibited at Tokyo Wonder Site Aoyama from October. Invited by the exchange program between Tokyo Wonder Site and IASPIS, the front stayed in Japan and developed a magnificent project. The sketched chairs and tables drawn in the air, get materialized in an almost magic way… The design unit Front that came up with such an innovative idea was definitely the talk of the town in those past weeks - magazine coverage non-stop.

I sneaked into the long queue of media interviewees and luckily I could have a little chat with Katja, one of the four Front members.

The exhibition room was full of people.

Anna, from Front demonstrates a sketch.

In this “Sketch Furniture”, the line of freehand sketches in the air are motion captured, then the laser beam builds the sketch in 3D - layer by layer - out of a liquid plastic material. How did you come up with this idea in the first place?

Katja (Front): I always thought “why start with 2D sketches when designing 3D products?” It all started from this simple question. It would surely be great if we could start sketching in 3D. Also, usually the first sketches are the best designs.

Another thing is that even if you’re not a trained designer, you could materialize your designs of your imagination using such a technique. Although - you can’t actually see your lines in the air and it is quite hard to draw! You go “Woops! Have I drawn this line already, or not?”. We actually had to train ourselves to draw in the air and our current chairs look much better than the first ones…

Apart from this “Sketch Furniture”, many of Front’s works ask the question “What is DESIGN?” A good example is their “Design by Animals” series where animals actually become the designers.

Katja (Front): When creating a product, there are usually some technical difficulties, and it takes many steps and many people involved to complete a design. It is very rare that the product stays the same as the original idea. So we thought of inviting animals into the production. Their design or their product is very direct for they only do what they want to do, don’t they? Thus we let the rats bite paper as much as they like to design this wallpaper, and snakes coil around clay to design hangers. Also, we made a vase out of a dog’s foot print in