IKEA Harajuku With Imma
Ever wondered what virtual influencers do all day?
IKEA opened their first city centre store in Tokyo, right in the heart of kawaii and streetwear culture. To show off just how happy and cute home life could be, we partnered with the virtual model, imma. We brought her to the real world for the very first time, creating a physical apartment for her inside the new IKEA Harajuku shop window, where she lived for three days.
Those that weren’t in Harajuku could see a digital window into imma’s home via a 72-hour YouTube livestream. Yes, 72 hours.
From the longest content I’ve ever made to some bite sized, slice of virtual life teasers.
As a reward for reading this far, I’ll share my favourite UGC anyone has created for anything I’ve worked on. A cuddly toy mascot YouTuber (as if virtual model wasn’t Japanese enough) did a tour of our IKEA Harajuku takeover.
Creative Lead: Max Pilwat
Copywriters: Max Cameron, Haruto Murata
Art Director/Designer: Shohei Kawada
MLB Ohtani 50/50 Tokyo Gallery
54 home runs, 59 stolen bases, 113 media placements, 24 hours after the season had ended.
Shohei Ohtani is no stranger to making history but this was something else. He became the first ever player to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in an MLB season. We celebrated his never-seen-before achievement with a never-seen-before OOH takeover, putting every single home run and every single stolen base on billboards across Tokyo.
It got picked up by over 100 articles in Japan alone and 20 odd primetime news slots, despite launching the same day as a new prime minister was announced. Real people loved it too, with some visiting every single billboard to try and catch ‘em all.
Creative Director: Max Pilwat
Copywriters: Max Cameron, Andrew Miller
Art Director/Designer: Shohei Kawada
Designers: Akane Yasuda, Konatsu Matsumoto
The designers and our Shohei were the real MVPs for their Ohtani-esque sprints. And our producer Yoko for getting us 100+ placements with less than a week’s notice. Something else.
Traffic Cones Of Japan
In a nation as safety conscious as Japan, it is perhaps unsurprising that the humble traffic cone is omnipresent. Yet, many instances of its use surprised, inspired and amused me. I created a photobook of the cones that didn’t just make me stop, but made me feel.
You can read more about the project in designboom, PetaPixel and Creativeboom, or you can read less about the project in Surface Magazine. Nothing wrong with a little brevity, Surface.
It’s also had several mentions on Reddit’s Coneheads thread (I think a cone focused crypto?), did some numbers on Twitter thanks to a Thai Ceramicist with a blue tick, popped up on Tom Sachs’ Instagram, and appeared in blogs all over the world and internet.
A lot of places have sold out now, so if you want to get your hands on a copy directly, get in touch via ︎ or ︎ or maxcamerontheprofessional@gmail.com. I’ve shipped copies to 4 continents (come on South America, what are you saying?) But please, please, gloves must be worn at all times when perusing the cones.
Japanese Stockists:
Booknerd Morioka
Hohohoza Jodijoji
Keibunsha Bookstore
Trope
Corner Books
Oven Universe
City Light Books (in store only, but you can get a nice drink when you’re in there)
Stacks (in store only)
Moire Store (in store only)
UK Stockists:
Good Press
Glitch
Burley Fisher (in store only)
The Photographer’s Gallery Bookshop (in store only)
Books Peckham
Reference Point (180 The Strand Museum Gift Shop, in store only)
Forum Books (in store only)
Book Design: Gareth Rowntree
Japanese Translation: Takuro Kobayashi
Nike Butterfly
Just an ad to celebrate Naomi winning the Australian Open.
In one of the matches in the tournament, a butterfly wouldn’t leave her alone. Her response was very Naomi Osaka and did the rounds on Twitter. We used it to celebrate her win and talk about the change she’s making off the court.
They put it on billboards in LA and New York too which was nice of them.
Copywriter: Max Cameron
Art Director/Designer: Kazuhi Yoshikawa
Amazon Manga: Stories Are My Sanctuary
We helped Jeff Bezos launch Amazon Manga by celebrating the feeling that Japanese comic books can give you. Whatever your day has in store, you can always dive into different worlds with manga, rubbing shoulders with your favorite characters and advancing the story at your own pace.
We got crafty with it all, shooting everything in camera.
Having written the stories in tandem with up-and-coming artists, we printed out over 1000 manga frames of different sizes and broke them out into many layers on glass. This was to recreate the digital reading experience, so the viewer could dive into each manga frame making these black and white sanctuaries oh-so-immersive. You can watch Mack and the gang talking about everything from 2.5D to Moco cameras to being inside a phone.
We also brought manga sanctuaries to the Tokyo streets and skyscrapers. Each reader is immersed in a different genre, with all kinds of easter eggs and homages tucked away in there, from the onomatopoeia to the speech bubbles to the fried shrimp getting abducted. When it came to the placements themselves, we loved having weird and wonky media placements, as that’s what manga frames look like.
Falling in love is my bedtime ritual.
Next stop: another world.
When I open the book, I hear the chimes.
This is my serious face, but I’m cracking up inside.
As I turn the pages, energy flows through me.
During my break, I’m undefeated.
Director: Mackenzie Sheppard
Director of Photography: Oli Millar
Creative Director: Max Pilwat
Copywriters: Max Cameron, Andrew Miller, Marina Danjo
Art Director: Shohei Kawada
Designer: Akane Yasuda