Tokyo Musingz
Documenting an Alien Experience
“Tokyo Musingz” is a 6-part illustrative series that documents some of the thoughts, revelations, and experiences I had in the 12 months I spent in Tokyo, Japan earning my masters degree.
Initially, I had wanted this series to be in a zine format but during the final stages of the image making process, I felt the images were strong enough to be presented as whole illustrations by themselves.
Style and Substance
Throughout my time in Tokyo, I kept a journal in my phone that served as the main source material for this series. As a black man, my time in Tokyo was very unique and as such, my notes app was a way for me to retreat and dump all of the emotions, thoughts, and experiences that I had. My time in Tokyo was not just a time when I pursued higher education, but it was also when I began to grow and develop as a man, artist, and individual; a time where I began to truly explore and understand who I was and what I wanted for the first time.
Before making this series, I combed through and picked the entries that I wanted to expand upon and turn into full fledged illustrations; thus, deciding to use design and illustration as a processing tool rather than just an artistic vehicle.
Stylistically, I wanted Tokyo Musingz to read as a stream of consciousness; a beautiful and honest cacophony of a human experience. I didn’t just want to focus on Tokyo, but I also wanted to focus on my experience as a recent college graduate entering a new phase of adulthood. Thus, I decided to dedicate half of the series to detailing my experience in Tokyo and the other half to detailing the aforementioned post-grad experience.