It has been three years since our last publication, and the days and months have passed in the blink of an eye. We have been caught up in the flow of daily work, with calendars filling up minute by minute, and some projects inevitably falling through. While the social and economic landscape has certainly shifted, our approach to making has remained largely the same. Yet, it often feels like both individuals and society have lost a sense of playfulness, becoming more constrained, more restricted.

With this sense of impasse weighing on us, we set off for Bali, Indonesia. Rather than navigating by a map or a predetermined plan, we allowed ourselves to be guided by connections—moving from person to person, stitching together encounters like threads in the fabric of the city, riding scooters, and meeting makers. In Oe-machi, Yamagata Prefecture, we ventured into the mountains with designers crafting ink from foraged materials. And in Hirokawa-cho, Fukuoka Prefecture, we ended our journey with a week-long residency, creating an open editing room. Through these hands-on experiences and the people we met along the way, our approach to making things slowly transformed.

This issue's special feature, “Changing the Way of Making”, invites us to abandon rigid plans and embrace side paths. Instead of drawing lines between ourselves and others, it’s about moving in unison—dancing through the process and weaving together what we encounter. Let’s begin this issue by tracing these gestures, and exploring how our own ways of creating can evolve.

October 2024, Ryo Shirai