Takachizu exhibit, website, and zine
Treasures from the Little Tokyo community were printed on-site using a laser printer and color paper.
Takachizu is a community archive, created by Rosten Woo with Maya Santos, that captures the stories and sites of Little Tokyo in Los Angeles. The Japanese words “takara” (treasure) and “chizu” (map) join to form “Takachizu” (treasure map). The project started as an exhibit of Sustainable Little Tokyo, a creative community development strategy that utilizes collaboration and experimentation to advance Little Tokyo’s power over its future. It lives on as a website, soliciting online contributions from visitors (a little like this site!) and organizing them by category and location.
The site, designed by Folder Studio, is set almost entirely in one type family: Adesso, an under-appreciated, wobbly-but-readable face by Thierry Puyfoulhoux that always struck me as a sort of sans-serif ITC American Typewriter.
The companion Takachizu zine, a PDF download, adds Pitch, Cooper BT Bold, and Wubble, a typeface I initially mistook as a customized version of Adesso with a little extra wub. The two are perfect partners, as demonstrated on the first headline of the site where Wubble is used for the Takachizu logo inline with Adesso text. The Japanese text in the exhibit uses Sandoll GothicNeo.
My compliments to Tiffanie Tran and Tom Kracauer, who gave this noble project a very charming face.
