The experimental project "Logo and Work" to find "OUR logo" has started!

Loftwork, which has celebrated the 22nd anniversary of its establishment, has started another new project. By making use of the diverse creativity of creators and Loftwork employees, “Logo and Work” is an experimental project designed to discover “OUR logo”. We are revealing the logos and artworks created as part of the first run of this project.

By making use of the diverse creativity of creators and Loftwork employees, “Logo and Work” is an experimental project designed to discover “our logo”. We are revealing the logos and artworks created as part of the first run of this project.

We are revealing newly completed logos that were created as part of the first run of this project. Please take a look at these logos, along with the associated artworks.

The finished logos and artworks are “sides” of Loftwork, as interpreted by each individual team. No single creation expresses Loftwork in the form of a logo; instead, the combination of all these logos shapes a multifaceted concept of Loftwork.

The theme of this creation is “words that are left for future generations”.
Kinoshita-san taught me the proper way of using equipment when I was participating in FabCafe Kyoto’s residency; and because I did not have knowledge, my attention was drawn to the noise made by the equipment, and I had some discussions. Noise is very much something that is subjective; when a straight artificial line deviates from its path, that can also be considered to be noise. However, I think that one can also say that the will of human beings to leave behind hieroglyphs and murals is simply because they are human.
I took inspiration from the concept of Loftworks being people that prototyped the future, and bought a meteorite that had traveled through the flow of time from the past to the future. I created a bento box with scenery from the streets, and tried UV printing directly on small stones that were very rough and uneven. And after a lot of trial and error, using a laser cutter I created a logo with the word Loftwork etched on a celestial body. The texture of the meteorite and the other stones I used are also contained within.
By working on this logo, I was once again strongly reminded of the fact that to me, Loftwork is a place for experimentation.

There are countless corporations who keep trying and failing to discover their own potential in the world.
Loftwork is a group of people that support these corporations, and at the same time, rely on them.
It changes its appearance depending on the time and situation; it is straightforward and honest; it conducts itself in a relaxed, leisurely fashion; just like a living spirit.

We unleash the values hidden within the “unique universe” that people and companies have by creating reliefs using these values. It is just like traveling through the universe of the customer.

Things that cannot be seen from a single perspective, can be found together with the involvement of creators and clients and their perspectives.
We use a box to symbolize a space that can store all manner of things; clouds to represent the leisurely living spirits that are Loftwork’s employees, and on the sides of the box are drawn the people who have collaborated on this project.

Loftwork, made up of partners and graduates, lingers in this world, and the lingering scent spreads faintly from Japan to the rest of Asia.

I tried placing a paper airplane and soil there
The paper airplane carries soil
In some other spot grass and flowers grow, and a town is born
Earthworms and pebbles
Living things and non-living things
Mixing and mixing, eventually we, the town, are born
What do you think of the story?
To make “something good”
I tried stripping its meaning from it
Anyway I was able to write the word “Loftwork” with innocence
I tried expressing our logo by attaching meaning to a situation

We made positive errors, and came up with a workshop that was visually settled. It activates the creativity that lies within everyone, and together with each individual’s personality, forms shapes on its own. This workshop cannot be done by only one person. Stories with the “things” that symbolize the teams that found them as the starting point are created, and through a process that uses traditional games such as drawing songs and fukuwarai as motifs, drawings are created in a collaborative fashion. A workshop that is open not only to you and I, but also to others who are not people. Creativity Within All.

When I went to Shibuya for a meeting, I wanted to blend the scenery and words of the Loftwork in Shibuya and the Loftwork in Kyoto together.
I made a very simple logo and sent it in on my own. But when I was working with Mome and Carorun Roll, there was a lot of anxiety over whether to compromise. The moment we were done, though, we thought “this is it!” and from there on it was smooth sailing. I have seen so many more pictures of the Loftwork in Kyoto than the one in Shibuya, so I think I will end up making a happy noise if I come across it while talking a walk in Kyoto.

In the past, I discussed two types of authors with an author acquaintance of mine. There are authors who adopt a persona (mask), and authors who reveal their true nature and weaponize it in their work. I cannot say that this is true of all authors, but strangely, I agreed with the idea.

According to Shuji Terayama’s play “Farewell, Films”, every individual is a proxy for someone else, and according to Shakespeare’s comedy “As You Like It”, the world is a stage, and people are just playing their parts on it from time on time.

In short, human beings have multiple accounts and avatars without being conscious of them, and human beings are living things that are playing out their individual roles simultaneously. Even if someone feels like they are living with their inner self revealed, I cannot shake the lingering doubt that they are merely playing the role of “themselves”, in accordance with what they feel is their self.

By extending that point of view in a slightly bizarre fashion, perhaps the mad structures that I make are also playing some role of their own, or acting as proxies for something else. This is because their behavior changes depending on the space in which they exist, and on how someone observes them; and when you perceive that this behavior is “someone else”, you will be reminded of a pleasant and refreshing sensation.

Plants need water, sunlight, and wind to grow healthily.
The stems of plants that detect these, and grow towards them.
The roots of plants that grow deep into the ground to find new friends.
The branches and leaves that grow well while being concerned for each other.
And the soil that becomes fertile from animals spreading the seeds and pollen of the flowers and plants growing on it.
Loftwork is layered in this nature.

This means finding “interesting things” as quickly as possible, and spreading its branches towards those things.
It also means looking forward to eventual meetings, to growing together with the people who give it water and light.
It means spreading new seeds with an eye on the future, while expanding roots in areas and communities.
The fertile soil that is Loftwork is brought about by painstakingly cultivating it in such a manner.

The Loftwork of today is made up of diverse projects and members, with lively creations painting the ground. The expansion of a unseen pocket universe to the future beneath the ground are two inextricably linked worlds, and they are expressed here in the form of risograph printing. Invested in the logo is Loftwork’s vigor as it steadily grows at the top and at the bottom, and a hope for new encounters on the ground.

Loftwork, the root for our slogan. We are glad that we are here to witness its 22nd anniversary, a moment of celebration, through a project like this.

Loftwork, a company that started the space known as Loft.
RGBs (※1) looks back on the history of Loftwork as an organization. Using the three elements (Creator, Society, Company) rooted in the original logo, and the space called Loft which is the source of creation, as a motif, I created a new logo.

When creating the logo, I thought that the places where the three primary colors RGB overlapped was where the brilliant white of Creativity existed. But isn’t creativity something that is born through the questioning of established principles, beliefs, and obsessions that seek to overturn common sense? Along those lines, by creating artwork using objects that go against the principles of the three primary colors and three-dimensional space, I expressed Loftwork as an existence that gives birth to new worlds of all sorts of shapes and sizes without being limited by common sense (※2).

There exist many bases throughout the world, and together with many different Loftworkers, this artwork expresses the idea that even though they are one, the environments of each of them are different.

※1 What are RGBs?
Comprises R (Akane), G (Midori), B (Boys – Kojima, Nakamaruo)

※ 2 What is common sense?
Nobody knows what common sense is. The world we recognize is more multifaceted and more colorful that it is to our eyes. No one can predict the result of the mixing of colors. Look at things from a different perspective, and shapes that no one has seen before will appear.

※ Who are Loftworkers?
They are the creators who made the space known as Loft, and the artists who bring color to within its walls.

When we were recalling our experience of traveling to LW, the word “Derive” came to mind. The literal translation is “to obtain something from a given source”, but its etymology has the meaning of “drawing water from a source → flowing out”. Isn’t this a LW-like word, a word that draws out the potential of each and every individual that make up society? By drawing out new streams of water, the worlds of each individual are broadened, and LW links each of these diverse, isolated worlds. The finished creation is a large world map which can be seen together by everyone involved.

▼Kota Abe
Believed that using as long as a framework born of the overlapping “variety” of Ms Sanuki’s artwork exists, the logotype that exists within would have “bones” of its own. To reaffirm the concept of “variety”, these “bones” must have the toughness to take a degree of impacts without flinching, and they must have the lightness to handle ever-changing situations. “Bones” that have these qualities will be just fine, and any number of frameworks born of these “bones” will be able to spread dynamically.

▼Sanuki Ayaka
Wrote the word “Potential” and the corresponding Chinese characters on her artwork. The person who wrote Loftwork’s company name on the back of the logo designed by Mr Kota Abe. The conversations with Mr/Ms Tsutsumi, the Taiwan team, and the process of collaborating with Mr Abe helped in giving form to a powerful visualization. Came across the word “potential” by chance, but was able to truly experience it through both this logo and Loftwork’s project.

After receiving this proposal, the first thing I did was to travel to the company’s headquarters in Shibuya to take a look. I went there with the goal of understanding the kind of company Loftwork was, but I ended up even more confused as to what the company did. After taking my leave of them, I put some thought into the matter, and I realized that in the first place, it was wrong to even try to understand a company like Loftwork by categorizing it or attaching a definition to it. There are many projects being carried out at the same time within the company, and all sorts of conversations that transcend the barriers of industries and careers are rapidly exchanged. I wanted to express that kind of spatial chaos in my work.

I created a visualization by making a collection of furniture which includes a rug that I made in real life. With the rug as a base, I assembled pieces of wood that was processed by the people at Hidakuma, creating a visualization revolving around a collection of furniture with no defined use case. It looks like a bizarre space from close up, but from a bird’s eye view 10 meters in the air, the word “Loftwork” appears for the first time. If we think of the furniture placed atop the rug as clients, creators, and Loftwork staff, the large rug is Loftwork itself, a vessel designed to fit everyone in it. Because of this, I decided on the form of the rug, which serves as a base, and not words that have contours, as a new logo for Loftwork.

The initial idea, logo, and the design of the detailed furniture assembled on top of it; all of these combine to make you feel that this is the answer to what you were thinking, that this could not exist in any other shape or form.