Buggirl's Increasingly Strange Tokyo Tales...

I've spent another small chunk of my weekend in the Turkish restaurant "Ofis/closet".

I am not sure if ofis is the Turkish word for office or if the label on the light switch is the owner's odd spelling. He's been in Japan for 20 years, his speaking ability is strong, but he doesn't read or write Katakana/Hiragana/Kanji. This makes for odd texts as his romanji spelling isn't standard and reflects Japanese through a Turkish sound/spelling filter.

The crowd, while thin, was solid. There was one table of two women, probably my age, who were absolutely GOBSMACKED that there was a bellydance. They got pictures with me afterwards even though I'd changed into my street-wear.

It reminded me that one task for tomorrow, before and after my Shibuya class, will be to design my latest flyer. The restaurant is also in Shibuya and the Sunday studio is mostly a mix of Burlesque/Bellydance for women 20-40, beginners, who want to have fun...so I need more personal flyers for the classes I do in the Tokyo area.

Lil' Ninja training, self-promotion, etc is requiring that I update from (mumble) the ancient Photoshop Elements 6 I've been using to barebones things...so I think I need to figure out the new Adobe Creative Cloud Packages...pfft. I'm not a design genius but my two "bosses" (Lil Ninjas and H at the studio) are design-deaf...and dating. Did I ever mention that my bosses are dating? That's a whole 'nother post.

The flyer is going to be PINK... Well, Sangria Pantone 19-2047...it's the only way it'll be seen in the mess that is the stuff near the cash register.

I think I mentioned that the restaurant owner is part squirrel. Squirrels aren't known for elegant design aethetics. The owner likes to think of himself as a DIY kinda guy...but he's not. He does it himself but he shouldn't. I've seen him proudly point to the extended reachy-hook he uses for taking things off the too-high coat-hanger-knobs (It appeared to be an old can-opener,those ones that would poke triangles into the sides of cans, that had been flattened with a hammer, bent into a hook, and lashed with wire onto a broomstick) and proud say "I made it myself!"

He owns two restaurants. I dance at both. The one you haven't seen pictures of yet has a new "changing room"...which he made himself and it folds away. He had to make a fold-away one because his last constructed changing room/storage space/ employee cloak room had to eventually be dismantled because the other tenants in the building kept unkindly reporting it as a fire hazard. I had to act surprised when he told me this.

But the number one thing he seems to generally get wrong in building is shelves. Many of the shelves I've seen are partly collapsed and propped up by the objects on the shelf below them. I know what you're thinking, but I think I know the answer: It's elephants all the way down.

I don't get the urge to fix the ones in the ofis but those near the register drive me insane, one or more is partly collapsed and held up by wine bottles and luck. They are all are filled to the brim with Turkish trinkets. I am a sucker for Turkish evil eye and lapis jewelry and have never been temped by these shelves intended for impulse.  They are too full. There are piles. The number of items betray their value. No one is ever going to think "this is cute...and who knows where else I could get one...heck....It's so reasonably priced!' Nope. People probably think "Um...which price is for what?" and 'If I touch one will the whole thing attack me?"

This is what I want to just point at and scream, "Throw some money at me and leave me alone in this corner for a while...you'll thank me later!" and spend a few hours cludging together a better, safer, display. 80% of the offerings need to be in clear containers in the ofis and only touched when restocking after a sale.*

And...the whole mess is earth tones with a few dark blue accents.

So updating the info and playing around with the old flyer isn't going to cut it.



Besides, that flyer is more for those already into dance who might be interested in my specialties....so I could save the blinged-out costumes for the back. I need something that says "I am the exciting dancer you saw. Did you like getting for a mini lesson? YOU COULD DO THAT REGULARLY!" in my more showy bellydance outfits...with shots of classes in action and additional info on the back

So. Flyer time it is.

*I could never actually do this. The owner would see this and tuck it into his mental nest of reasons I would make a lovely dating companion and future wife who would nourish the business. I don't need another round of those texts and phonecalls ever again.

Today I designed and placed an order for a quick post-card sized flyers to promote my classes. I don't know much about using photoshop to design stuff...but I know what sucks...so I generally go for very clean design and let the images carry most of the impact without adding a bunch of doodly-diddlys.

I'd show you the results but you'd probably have creative feedback that I'd want to implement and I am too tired to do that right now...and I've (hopefully) successfully sent the files to the printer.... It can be hard to tell with Japanese order forms.

I on-line messaged with wigglewhiz part-way through the process when my brain had started breaking down.

The thing about designing when I have to deal with Japanese characters is worrying if the design I think works is actually being written in, say, the Japanese font equivalent of Comic Sans...but that I don't have the Japanese depth of design to know any better.