Material emoticons
Here's a bit of fun. Chances are, if you frequent Tokyo's select shops that you've come across Makiko Yoshida's CAO Maru squeezable rubber faces, which you can push and squish to create a variety of expressions. Design Office A4's Faces Stamp is based on the same idea, turning a simplified, iconic face pattern into a stamp. It's just the thing if you want to add emoticonlike expressions to your handwritten missives. Faces Stamp has garnered prizes in design competitions (it was originally released in 2007) and was recently included in a celebration of Japanese design in Paris, the "WA: L'harmonie au quotidien — Design japonais d'aujourd'hui" exhibition. The stamp comes in blue, pink, and black, and sells for ¥525.
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