I am mainly in charge of site design, photography, and creating images for Instagram.
This time, I'd like to talk about my career as a designer and how I met my fellow members.
A dislike of studying led him into the world of art
Ever since I was little, I loved drawing and hated studying, so I applied to a private high school that offered an art course, thinking that I could get by just by drawing without having to study.
Students in the art course were required to join the art club, and during club activities they would do sketches and oil paintings every day as if they were in class.
I joined thinking it would be easy, but it was actually quite strict.
I remember it was particularly tough practicing still life drawing in preparation for the university entrance exams, as I had to draw many drawings every day in class, club activities, and at home.
I believe that the efforts I made back then are still useful to me today.
I'd like to talk about the depth of drawing someday.
*Drawings from that time
Thanks to that drawing practice, I was able to enter university through a recommendation exam and major in graphic design. (I got this far with almost no studying.)
Whereas up until then I had been using analogue methods (pencils and paints), at university I learned about commercial design, such as posters, book covers, and packaging, using Illustrator and Photoshop on the computer.
*Package design created at the time
Since it was a national or public university, general education classes were compulsory, and since I had never studied before, it was difficult for me to get the credits.
During my time at university, in addition to studying design, I also joined the dance club and started doing lock dance.
During high school, I became absorbed in the world of dance, partly due to the frustration of not being able to choose my own club activities.
Dance is also a creative genre, and creating choreography and thinking up the composition made me realize once again that I love creating things.
Professional Web Designer and Meeting with Members
Because I was careless about my job hunting, I only got a job offer on my last day as a student.
I was vaguely thinking about finding a job in my hometown of Okayama, but then I was asked during the interview if I wanted to do web design in Tokyo. I had been designing printed media up until then, but I thought that print media might go out of fashion someday. So I decided to move to Tokyo to work as a web designer.
At first, I designed banners and mass-produced pages, but gradually I started creating overall page designs as well. Because it was a small company, I also started doing upstream processes other than design, such as proposals and screen design, and now my main job is as a director.
And now that I had some disposable income, I decided to go buy some expensive but nice clothes! So I went shopping in Harajuku.
The person who served us at the shop we visited was none other than member Katayama.
They kept trying to get me to buy expensive clothes.
We responded by treating them as annoying customers.
I made them recommend clothes to me even though I didn't want to buy them, and I hesitated to buy them that day! (I ended up buying them)
*Katayama at the time
In this way we became good friends and started hanging out together in private as well.
When the company where I work was short-staffed, Katayama came on as a part-timer, and another member, Kuroda, was brought on to help out during that part-time job.
From there, the three of us started hanging out together, and after thinking about what we could do together and doing something creative, we decided to open an online second-hand clothing store.
If you want to run a second-hand clothing store, you need a good camera.
So I invested about 300,000 yen in myself and got some new creative items, a mirrorless camera and a flash.
I'm still learning, but I feel like I'm taking better photos with each new product I add.
I hope you enjoy watching Studio KNK grow in terms of photography as well!
So far I have told you about my career.
It's been 13 years since I started working in manufacturing.
I would like to continue taking on various creative challenges and sharing them with everyone through Studio KNK!
Please look forward to Studio KNK's future activities!
Written by Namba
Instagram: namba.photo