The Cool Japan logo (or is it Japan Next)

Cool Japan* is a Japanese government project to spread the cultural and intellectual influence of er, cool stuff from Japan internationally. It is spearheaded by METI, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. While it was initiated in 2010, it is being pushed more energetically in the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake. (Incidentally, you may know METI better by their daily/weekly radiation reports since the Fukushima nuclear power plant disasters.) By “Cool Japan”, they mean “creative industries” such as anime, fashion and film (at least that’s what they list so far).

The official information on the METI site is only in Japanese, which seems to sort of belie the ‘international’ aspect, but there you are. Perhaps they want to keep it in Japan for now until they can map out a strategy.

In the meantime though, they have an official logo.

It looks like a flaming red ball…the red sun on the Japanese flag on fire. Or something like that. To me, it looks abit like the red ball/sun is running away fast from something, which is probably not the intention. And then there’s the somewhat enigmatic “Japan Next” text underneath. Why the program is called Cool Japan, while the logo says Japan Next, is beyond me, but there it is.

It was designed by “famous logo designer Kashiwa Sato”. The official METI announcement of the Cool Japan/Japan Next logo somewhat oddly includes examples of some of his other work.

It’s almost like they are trying to say “hey look, the logo may be a bit enigmatic but it was done by This Famous/Legit Designer!” But I may be over-analyzing.

What do you think of that Cool Japan Next logo? Good, bad, meh?

[* Cool Japan is also the name of a long running English language show on NHK, where expats residing in Japan talk about or explore ‘cool things about Japan’. I personally can’t stand the show, but that’s for another time.]