About The Journal
Photo by: Sebastian Mayer
Hawken King is a designer and illustrator living and working Tokyo. He has been keeping and online journal since 1999 – this is it.
best tooth news ever
Published 30th of Apr, 2004. Stored under diary
You may now grow new teeth using your bodies own stem cells.
That means that dentures are a thing of the past.
Tests are being carried out over the next 2 years and dentists hope to use this technique within 5 years. The teeth take 3 months to grow and are implanted straight into your gum.
Best news I’ve heard in a long time. I’ve spent over Âœ3000 on my teeth, and always wondered about genetically implanted ones… the future is here ladies and gentlemen.
smoking
Published 23rd of Apr, 2004. Stored under diary
After being totally infuriated with my life and the way I’m heading I’ve decided to give up smoking – its a wise choice and I’m not really going to look back. I feel 10x healthier!
I’ve had to put in an insane amout of overtime with my company, I’ve not had time to do my passionate personal work or update my homepage. This lead to me feeling ill, acid reflex, insomnia and smoking like a train.
Fags (as we call them in the uk) are off. Health is on.
sansho dayu
Published 15th of Apr, 2004. Stored under diary
first film to have me infloods of tears for a very long time. an old black and white japanese flick made in 1954.
A story about a brother and sister who were born to royalty but seperated from thier father at a young age to work as slaves. until the son escapes, reclaims his title and abolishes slavery in the region. His sister kills herself, while her brother saves thier mother from being left to die.
much later, to the end of the film, the brother seeks his mother, whom he hid in a monestary long ago.
It ends with him trying to convince his mother that he is not a ghost and he is here to carry on his fathers promise, to be true and honest.
I found this quote online: The visual elegance and formal restraint of his style make the film all the more emotionally harrowing, and the final scene, on a desolate and windswept island, must be one of the most unbearably moving endings in all cinema.
no shit.
Camera T-shirt
Published 12th of Apr, 2004. Stored under pixelart, print
One of the T-Shirts available for sale over at pixel tees dot com
Office space
Published 27th of Mar, 2004. Stored under diary
I spent most of yesterday building an office inside my frontroom.
Today I’ve been testing it out and its hella cozy 
I find that a nice seat and a good height desk can allow me to work at a better speed, I was just sitting on the floor beforehand, which is not the best soloution.
The odd thing is that my new desk setup is made from the same metal shelving as when I worked in Tokyo, so I supose its bringing back some memories.
Anyhow, no rest for the wicked!
Final Fantasy Christal Chronicals
Published 25th of Mar, 2004. Stored under Journal
With such fantastic artwork, it’s sometimes a struggle to keep it pure and really show off the art in the best way possible. This was a success!
passion for fashion
Published 24th of Mar, 2004. Stored under diary
Today myself and my boss here at babel went to the student fashion show at brighton university of arts to watch my friend Sylvia do her thing on the catwalk!
It was very refreshing to watch and there were some excelent designs on show.
We later took to the pubs, but were turned down at the door from the private post show party due to not having tickets (sylvia forgot to get ones even for herself!).
Spring has finally sprung
Published 15th of Mar, 2004. Stored under diary
Wow! Its sunny outside
Well, I’ve got a new computer. My work load has increased 1000 fold, and I practicaly have no time to update dadako.com
On the upside, I’ve been going ebay mental. I am now the proud owner of a japanese super nintendo with a whole tonne of games. All the classics have been bought, except for the occasional one that goes over Âœ15, I’d never spend more than that on a boxed classic. Last night I booted up yoshi’s island (it took a few attempts and much blowing into the cartridge). The extra speed of this console compared to the UK version is wicked.
It’s inspired me to open a new section here at hawken.dadako.com, my collectors gallery. Which will be in the diversions area as soon as I get that up and running.
Sword of mana
Published 14th of Mar, 2004. Stored under Journal
The artwork from this game was so lovely, little was needed from me to preserve and display, more of a curator than designer on this one, it seemed.
Windwave website
Published 22nd of Feb, 2004. Stored under Journal
This website never really happened, they just asked us to pitch for the design. I had a bit of free time knocking about so I knocked up this.
computer is broken
Published 14th of Feb, 2004. Stored under diary
somehow, my USB connector is broken, has been for ages but only just works. I got very angry with it the other day (as its the connection to my outside world, internet / data / wacom input) and took my laptop apart.
Unfortunatly Ive now ripped the motherboard to bits, and now have no USB. Ever again.
Which means I cant update my websites, read my email, and all other things associated.
Joy! Maybe now I can read a book or something!
Transformers promotional DVD
Published 7th of Feb, 2004. Stored under Journal
Unmemorable work on an unmemorable DVD menu, in 5 million different languages. This required quite a bit of work, not really all that interesting so I’ll just leave it here.
its not often you see a website like this
Published 29th of Jan, 2004. Stored under diary
Because I’ve cut back on drinking and I’m not smoking, and because its cold outside and there’s too many channels on digital tv, I’ve been spending a lot of time on the internet.
I have to say most of everything is a load of old poo! I’m mostly looking at arty things, and I’d don;t like what I see. But every now and then something amazing comes along, usually corporart (commercial art) which can include music and games promotion websites.
Here is one such site, for the western release of a Japanese playstation game. I really cannot stress how impressed I am. forbidden siren is like a cross between The Ring and an old SNES game called Otogiriso, which was one of the greatest text adventures ever.
This site of course has all the latest trickery that flash has to offer including speach. In fact, its hardly worth visiting the site with no audio. I rate this 10 out of 10!
Just don’t look at it in the dark
http://www.forbidden-siren.com/
and the entry page hanuda
JellyBoy T-Shirt
Published 13th of Jan, 2004. Stored under pixelart, print
One-off run of pixel t-shirts to celibrate an unknown Nintendo game called JellyBoy by Hugh Riley.
Mario Golf
Published 9th of Jan, 2004. Stored under Journal
This was my final production level involvement in Nintendo assets, where I Art Directed and did some of the wallpapers.
The screensaver is particularly interesting, its archived on Ming. Also this is the first time I’ve worked with my new artist Mat on Nintendo stuff, he’s done a fine job!
spiderman
Published 23rd of Dec, 2003. Stored under diary
As I walked out from my neighbours apartment to go to the pub, he majesticaly locked himself out!
We pondered how to get back into the apartment. Which resulted in me scaling 3 floors of scaffolding and then clambering through several peoples balconies.
goodbye japan
Published 21st of Dec, 2003. Stored under diary
Well, its time to leave Japan once again. This will be the 5th time I’ve left this wonderfully strange place, which never ceases to facinate me.
I’ve accomplished prettymuch everything I set out to do, except for purchasing a few gadgets and books that I needed. I got my love back, who is coming back to England in the new year.
I wish I could have stayed in Japan forever.
And I suppose my unwillingness to go was felt in my flight… some of the most scary moments in my life. Ever flown at the back of a 747? Its shit. Add to that the most turbulent weather possible. And a plane full of screaming passengers.
The only thing that made it all worthwhile was the short flight from Amsterdam to London in the evening. We had to circle above london whilst waiting for landing permission… breathtakingly beautiful.
Domo Kun
Published 19th of Dec, 2003. Stored under diary
Went to the NHK building with sayuki, bought a whole tonne of domo kun goodies.
Learnt that the Japanese are only just getting digital TV broadcasts… we’ve had them for 5 years in the uk. Well that’s one up on them for once then! Hell even I own a Sony freeview box at home.