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Illustration
Design
Film & Video
Photography
Music & Audio
Architecture

Name: W+K Tokyo Lab Studio
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Founded: 2003
Web site: www.wktokyolab.com
: W+K Tokyo Lab is a new music label concept launched by Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo in 2003. Our mission is to bring new experiences that can only be created in Tokyo through a unique global mix of music, visuals and other forms of creative expression through a DVD and CD. Tokyo attracts some of the world’s most innovative creative collaborators. We are passionate about the development of new ideas with our creators and connecting them to a new audience. Simply put, it is about good music, fresh visuals and new concepts of creative expression.

Gallery

Click on the thumbnails to view other W+K Tokyo Lab projects.

Hifana: “Fresh Push Breakin’” CD/DVD

Hifana is a breakbeat duo known for their creative live performances. Inspired by Hifana’s strange and playful characters, a world of duality is created between the “Good” Hifana and their evil alter ego — the “Bad” Hifana. The battle continues with the Karuda, a popular playing card game among Japanese kids.

Takagi Masakatsu: “Rehome” CD/DVD

Inspired by the process and chaos of rebuilding and remodelling the Kyoto home in which Takagi grew up. Takagi and his wife, Saeko, are depicted as a newly united couple in their home, in normal daily life — cooking, lounging, bathing, gardening, emailing, cleaning and rearranging their new life together. These activities inspired the album.

UC: “Street Revolution” Music Video

UC’s “Street Revolution” is a call-to-action urging the masses to evolve and reinvent hip-hop by drawing inspiration from its original roots of raw, pure and eclectic street expression. To get that across loud and clear, we created a bold visual manifesto using raw and iconic imagery, broadcasting our message with street immediacy, inspiring revolutions within us. The propaganda kit contains a CD, booklet, and wild postings with a URL, linking us to dynamic online expressions of the UCSR movement, including episodic interactive and video content, evangelizing Street Revolution.

Hifana: Wamono Music Video

The beat junkies duo of Hifana set sail as two determined fishermen in hopes of a big “Tairyo” catch in this epic and surreal Japanese folklore between man and his beats against the raging waves and stormy seas in the land of Wamono.

Afra: Digital Music Video

Afra is the most recognisable Japanese human beatboxer worldwide. With Prefuse 73 as producer Afra’s first release from W+K Tokyo Lab, Digital Breath, is a departure from traditional beatbox and hip-hop, giving birth to a truly new form of hybrid music, fusing the organic with the digital. By illustrating Afra exhaling digital breath and creating life forms, the package preludes this hybrid experience as well as the music video for the title track, Digital Breath.

DJ Uppercut: “Pieces” CD/DVD

DJ Uppercut is an electronic one man band, fusing Japanese and country western. The “toy-in-a-box” package is inspired by the famous Japanese pretzel brand Pocky and its American counterpart, Cracker Jack, complete with perforated pockets that contain literal pieces of DJ Uppercut. The pieces assemble into a three dimensional diorama, a futuristic, cheap sci-fi western stage set where the 3D Uppercut cut-out battles through his many adventures using music as his weapon.

Nike Presto: Urban Canvas TVCM

Nike’s goal was to inspire young people in a new way to express themselves through technology, bringing what normally is flat art to move through pan-Asian cities in 3D. To achieve this, we assembled an international collective of post-graffiti and digital motion graphic artists, a musician, and a Presto Instant Go team from across borders and disciplines, who in a sense become ambassadors of culture for their respective nations. The story goes beyond being “just an ad”, but shows Nike’s commitment to supporting innovative youth from around the world.