“It began with not being able to see whom I wanted to see and go where I wanted to go during the pandemic; having this looming worry about losing my job,”
COLOURLESS was founded by Hase, a Japanese passionate about paper and design. Bringing together like-minded creatives from Japan and Taiwan, the online zine features five columns across texts and images, forging relationships and dialogue in times of disconnect.
The team describe the name of their zine as:
“Colourless” – Is the absence of colour. At the same time, it invites one to imagine a colour not yet conceived.
Colourless Is a colour hinting at infinite possibilities.
One of their columns is a collection of prose about colour. A train car bathing in the warm glow of green; sparks exploding into a summertime sky – these are but ephemeral, time-based colours of everyday life, susceptible to displacement unless documented.
Another column follows a Tokyo-based freelancer, whose work brings a concomitant adjustment to the caffeinated lifestyle. Tokyo’s tea shops are neither as homely as those in Nagoya nor as common as the ones in Kyoto, but they are equally competitive in prices. You can sit all day – as long as you leave the napping elderly alone. Perhaps it’s in this suspension of time that everyone feels welcome to tend to their respective needs. This is a column that chronicles the freelancer as a flâneur between tea shops.
The column “#somewhere_birthday” visualises everyday life using found objects. Every day is someone’s birthday, somewhere – though it may not be someone we know. In that sense, every single day is worth celebrating. Some people might celebrate by making wishes, some might give their blessings to loved ones, some might celebrate in quiet. Whatever form the celebration takes, birthday candles symbolise a rare opportunity to make demands of the universe – and some people would actually dedicate this opportunity to you. Such is the purpose of this column, its creator explains, “I want to spend the rest of the year in this creative direction.” The image library of “#somewhere_birthday” is available to purchase online as birthday cards for loved ones.
We may have little control over our circumstances, but perhaps by zeroing in on something else – something as small as a thought, we can conjure many pleasant surprises. As Hase says, “You’ll never know if you never try. You’ll never know if you never persist.”
COLOURLESS has also recently launched a summer print zine, which you can order online. When it comes to materialising a person’s vision, there is strength in numbers, but even more so in collective goodwill.
