These textile shop banners are common in Japan. Given how easy they are to install and how much more beautiful they are than typical signage, it seems strange that they haven’t been widely copied. They can easily be adapted for interior decor, too, not just exterior purposes. These two examples are from restaurants - the yellow one is in Matsumoto City and the blue is from a specialty eel restaurant in Tokyo’s Asakusa district. Their bottom corners are held down either with iron weights or simple hooks screwed into the sidewalk. The banners have the dual function of advertising the shop or restaurant as well as hiding bland areas of architecture or unsightly objects – here the blue fabric panel also serves to hide empty beer crates awaiting pickup. These could so easily be rigged up at home, for many purposes – as room dividers for interiors, or as space dividers outside for carports, patios or yards. Even plain or printed outdoor canvas would work, and the panels could just as easily be hung vertically – they don’t have to be pitched at an angle. We’re in the process of producing similar room dividers from vintage and sustainable textiles using this method, for those who don’t want to DIY.

Tags: banners, design, DIY, hanging room divider, Japan, Japanese design, printed textiles, room dividers, space dividers, textile design

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 24th, 2008 at 6:12 pm and is filed under design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.