410 #01 Kyoto, Tomoyuki Koseko

410 design is a research unit within KOSEKO DESIGN&PRESS, focusing on the theme of designing perception. Through printing techniques and material-based experiments, it explores alternative ways of viewing landscapes and phenomena.

By extending graphic design into the realms of art, architecture, and local collaboration, 410 design conducts experimental practices that reconfigure how we see and interpret the world. The outcomes take various forms—research documents, art books, and spatial installations—bridging design and reflection, printing and phenomena, observation and imagination.

The first issue of 410 (視点 Shiten) focuses on the Kyoto perspective “Stargazing for Crafts.” Along with a photo collection likening the textures of workshops throughout Kyoto to planets, the issue includes a bonus design toy called the “Planet Lens,” which allows materials to be transformed into planets. The Planet Lens is a disk-shaped design toy with a film in the center. The film has spherical shadows, and when you look through it against materials, their surfaces appear like planets. We visited workshops all over Kyoto, capturing various textures, from products to workshop blemishes and stains, and turning them into planets through photography. From dazzling silk fabrics to hammer marks, workshop textures are transformed into the expressions of planets. Actual celestial photographs are also interspersed throughout. 

Includes a "Planet Lens" (20mm diameter) as an appendix.