Yokaj Studio’s representatives Yosh and Kajfa are now back from Japan! By now, most of you probably know that they went to Osaka, Japan, to promote Yokaj Studio with Sweden’s biggest heptathlon star Carolina Klüft at her press conference before the start of the World Championship in athletics. Before moving on to the event, we’d like to express our happiness about Carro’s victory in the championships! Not only did she break the European record, she’s also ranked as the world’s second best female heptathlon athlete in history! It has been an enourmous experience for us to have had worked with such a prominent and loved person. We hope that she continues to enjoy and have fun with her sport and that our ways cross yet again, somehow, in the future.

We’ll devote our forthcoming blog posts to our stay in one of the world’s coolest countries, Japan, but before that, on to the press conference in Osaka!

Kajfa and Yosh on the plane heading to Narita Airport in Tokyo. Yokaj Studio were contacted by PR-giants M&C Saatchi just a few weeks prior to the trip, with the commission of doing the pictures for Carro’s sponsor Reebok.

We could already feel the Japan wibes on the plane, as they were serving Japanese food in bento boxes!

From Tokyo, the couple the Shinkansen to Osaka, where they checked in to the five star hotel Osaka Hilton, which M&C Saatchi had booked for them.

The night view, as seen from the room where Yosh and Kajfa stayed at.

On the morning, the same day as Carro’s press conference, we met our contact persons from M&C Saatchi. They are real nice English men.
Left: John Parker, our main contact person who talked in a Scottish accent, which made our phone calls extra long!
Center: Yosh herself from Yokaj Studio, feeling exceptionally small among them Englishmen.
Right: Jamie Wynne-Morgan, who was responsible for directing the journalists to the right place at the conference.

Yosh outside the Tennoden restaurant, where the conference took place. Not quite surprisingly, Reebok had booked one of the most luxurious restaurants in central Osaka.

Kajfa outside the conference room. The floor was covered in tatamimats, and beautiful bamboo shades separated the corridor from the main room.

Waitresses in yukata (a kind of kimono) padded around the restaurant to ensure that all the guests were comfortable.

Journalists and reporters setting up their cameras inside the conference room.

Before the press conference, we got to talk to Carro for a bit, in private, to discuss the event.

As the start of the conference drew nearer, the reporters started to pour into the room.

Yokaj Studio were welcomed to the stage first to talk about the pictures with the host. Carro enters the stage afterwards, and as she walks towards us, our illustrations are rolled down on the walls. Following this, we talked a little about her thoughts of the pictures and which her favorite was.

Carro signing her favorite picture.

Another picture she liked.

Yosh having her picture taken with one of her own favorites.

We posed in front of the biggest illustration on stage with Carro, having journalists take pictures of us together. The illustrations generated a lot of interest among the reporters.

View from the side.

The room in which the press conference took place.

M&C Saatchi on picture together with MEI PW(who were responsible for putting up conference, arranging our illustrations to be printed on nice canvases and safely delivered to Osaka.)
From the left: James (MEI PW), Jamie (M&C Saatchi), Nigel (MEI PW) and Ryan(M&C Saatchi)

After a long session with the reporters, Carro is finally able to leave the restaurant. Yosh and Kajfa got a hug each before she left, feeling a little empty afterwards, after having worked so intensively with her.

A couple of hours afterwards, we ventured out into the city and had a tasty dinner with the Saatchi and MEI guys.

And the food tasted as good as it looked like on the picture!

After having our dinner, we walked around the beautiful streets and found several cool street lamps such as this one! It appears to be some kind of robot, which is over 2 floors high. Cool!

Our final act of the day was a visit to the karaoke bar! If you’re in Japan, you have to try it! Japanese people love to karaoke with their friends, family and colleagues. The picture certainly speaks for itself!

Summary

It has, of course, been very exciting for us to have been working with a star as big as Carro, and on top of that get invited to Japan! The first few days before the conference were hectic and involved a lot of work. When the conference was over, Yosh and Kajfa decided to stay in Japan for the week. Look forward to the next post, as we will follow them to their adventures in Tokyo, visiting the manga and gaming fans’ ultimate paradise — Akihabara!

Thanks

We want to give special thanks to John from M&C Saatchi, whom we had the most contact with during the project. We also want to thank Jamie and Ryan, who also come from Saatchi. Furthermore, we want to thank James from MEI PW, who’s a really funny guy and who always had a funny anecdote to share with us. Also, thanks go to Reebok, who payed for our trip, lodging and food. We also want to give a shout to Nigel for being so nice! And last but not least, we want to thank Carro, for being such a wonderful and sweet person!