NPO heartful japan: badges by toyo ito

  toyo ito at the NPO heartful japan’s booth is showing us his favorite badge, out of the 6-series he designed this year for this initiative. portrait © designboom

heartful japan is only one of the many non- profit and non-governmental activities (NPO) in japan. one of the nice things that heartful japan does is to help foreign visitors in japan to find their way. inside the main venue of tokyo designers week, the gracious NPO heartful japan offered free translation services for visitors looking for help in negotiating. more than 60 volunteers were eager to translate japanese into english language. NPO heartful japan had also a booth were they sold badges designed by famous architects and designers. the revenues are a valuable financial support for their many activities.

image © designboom

toyo ito is one of the main promoters of NPO heartful japan. at the booth he is showing us his favorite badge, out of the 6-series he designed for this year’s initiative. ‘making relations’ is the title of his drawings. upon request, at the opening event, toyo ito signed his badges for customers.

image © designboom

designboom bought lots of different badges, to collect a few and for our friends. of course we could not resist to ask for a signature too. jean nouvel’s badge of the 2009 collection was sold out. as most of them they went away in the 5 days of the tokyo designers week.

the 2010 collection of badges for sale image © designboom

the 2010 collection of badges for sale image © designboom

the ‘marble badge’ by junya ishigami, is offered as a set of 16 shades.

the 2010 collection of badges for sale image © designboom

image © designboom

maki onishi of onishimaki+hyakudayuki /o+h architecture office, a former student of mr.ito, developed a very nice way to shed light on the many colorful badges. she used LED lighting housed in white painted plastic bottle necks.

most of the badges of the 2009 collection are not available anymore image © designboom

image by maki onishi

maki onishi image © designboom

the 2010 collection

yoko hijikata, a japanese-language teacher, often heard students complain how japanese tend to turn a blind eye to foreigners they see experiencing trouble on the streets. in 2005, to help change that impression, hijikata founded the volunteer group heartful japan. hijikata runs a firm that dispatches japanese-language teachers and gives lessons in business etiquette to japanese clients.

yoko hijikata image © designboom