What’s your foresight in Japanese magazine scene?

It’s been long since the mag featuring photos of popular celebrities and idols got into the scene. As for design itself, it can’t go any further now. I think magazine editors will realise the importance of reading articles, not viewing visuals. The next generation of editorial designers will emerge soon.

How about the internet? Are you…

If you think about sending infomation to the whole world, you can’t ignore the possibility of it. We’ll do something different from the paper mag. It’ll be completely different from the mag. I went to Hong Kong to take the interviews before its return to China, and +81 was out after the return. You see it’ll take sometime to get a paper mag published. On the internet, it’s possible to feature the latest information as soon as possible, which we’ll try to achieve. You have to take a right medium for a right purpose. The internet has a certain advantage that paper mags don’t have and vice versa.

Could you specify your plan about the internet?

Article pages will have no visuals because it takes more or less sometime to view the page if they have Shockwave, Flash etc. It’s best to be read with no irritation. You often feel disappointed, after a long surf, to find out a site that is unexpectedly boring, don’t you? That’s what I want to avoid. As I sometimes taIk with Natsume from Gasbook, I think it’s a good idea that each medium such as paper mags, CD-ROMs and the internet can have a constant interactivity and shared content in common.

Are you willing to do business with the internet?

I think mail-order is convenient. You can sell books, CD-ROMs, fonts etc on the net. It’s also convenient to be able to purchase fonts through the net because you don’t have to go get floppies any more. If it sovles security problems, it will be useful. And, as I always think when I use search engines, you see being on the net is almost like swimming in the vast sea serching for a piece of stone, not as comfortable as saying net surfing. You have to find out the stone while nearly choked to death in the sea. It can take ages to get to a site you like, you know. So, what I want to do is simplify the whole messy process and let them make a shortcut to get where they want to go straight away. Also, another problem is the fact that not all emails are welcome . Once it’s adressed, any emails just come to you even if you don’t need all of them.

Wouldn’t it be good there’s some search engines which specialises in detailed categorisation?

Yeah, that’s right. That was what I talked with a guy from SO-NET the other day like, for instance, there’s an icon of Konishi on a search engine page which you can click through to his favourite sites. It could be +81 or SHIFT, you know. I think there should be a salon-like place on the web that applies membership.

+81 Vol.1 Autumn 1997
The first issue released on 25th August, 1997
Quarterly, 880 yen
Editorial Department: DD WAVE Co., Ltd.
Published by Korinsha Press & Co, Ltd.
https://www.plus81.com