HAPPENING (signed)

HAPPENING, an art book by graphic designer and art director Asuka Wakida.

This collection of works is based on Wakida's graduation project at Tokyo University of the Arts. It compiles her actual records, such as diary entries and photographs, featuring illustrations of people she met and events that occurred each day, presented on a two-page spread per day. New works from 2018 were added, and the book was published by STAIRS PRESS in 2019.

As the title "HAPPENING" suggests, the book depicts not extraordinary incidents but the small events of everyday life. Conversations with friends, landscapes seen while commuting, people encountered in the city, fleeting emotional shifts — these fragments are quietly rendered with soft lines and colors.

As the words "Our daily lives are full of happenings. Every mundane day is wonderful and fateful," suggest, the book is underpinned by a gaze that carefully observes daily life.

While an illustration collection, it also possesses the feel of a diary, drawings, a design book, and even an "I-novel," crystallizing Asuka Wakida's very sense of everyday life into a single volume.

Book design is by Hana Yazaki. The soft binding using codex binding is also appealing.

Awarded the Taito City Mayor's Encouragement Prize in 2017.

[Title] HAPPENING
[Publisher] STAIRS PRESS
[Publication Date] October 2019
[Page Count] 216 pages
[Size] Approx. 120 x 160 x 21mm
[Format] Case-bound Codice binding, 4C
[Language] Japanese / English
[Title Reading] HAPUNINGU
[Author/Editor] Asuka Wakida / Author, Hana Yazaki / Book Design & Editing, Zuan Chaofan / Editing, Maki Sato / Translation
[Printing] INNUIT
[ISBN] 9784908851070
[Condition] New, Signed
[Accessories] Bookmark
[Featured In] -
[Related Exhibition] 2020 "HAPPENING" (MIDORI.so2 Gallery OMOTESANDO)

Asuka Wakida (born 1993)

Born in Aichi Prefecture in 1993. Graphic designer, art director.

After graduating from the Department of Design at Tokyo University of the Arts, she completed her master's degree at the same university. She became independent after working at Cozfish.

While working on design in a wide range of fields such as books, exhibitions, advertisements, and fashion brands, she also continues to create her own works such as art books and scarves.

She has handled numerous art direction and graphic design projects, including for PARCO, LUMINE, HARUTA, ZUCCa, and the Doraemon 50th Anniversary Project. Her work is characterized by a design and color sense that carefully captures emotions and atmospheres found in daily life.

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