The artist behind Los Angeles-based lifestyle label Tokidoki and LeSportsac’s latest collaborator shares his design and travel picks.

It List Tokidokis Simone Legno Shares His Travel And Design Picks 5 Legno’s most visited twitter account is @designrelated

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Aya Takano is part of the Superflat art movement

Pop Art Idol “Aya Takano is my favourite artist on the planet. She belongs to Takashi Murakami’s Kaikai Kiki entourage (a community of artists into Murakami’s 2-D, anime-influenced Superflat art movement). Her work has that kawaii vibe, a fantastic use of colours and is far from ‘flat’. I find them poetic, romantic and melancholic all at once.”

Go-to Stationery Brand “I draw best with pencils by the American company Dixon. They’re basic wooden pencils that aren’t expensive, yet the softness of the lead and the pressure I need to apply are just right.”

Most Underrated Museum “The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, which is a stone’s throw away from my home in the Westwood area, is small, not touristy, and has a great curation of contemporary art – great if you don’t like spending hours in huge establishments like The Louvre.”

 

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Painter Takuma Iwasaki’s artwork

Favourite City “I’ve visited Tokyo more than 35 times and am always on the hunt for new places. I’m fascinated with how kitsch, humorous and creative the city is. The latest place I discovered is the Ninja Akasaka restaurant in the Chiyoda district. It serves delicious traditional Japanese cuisine, but everything else is ninja-themed – from the dimly lit decor to the server’s uniform to the cutlery. You get daggers instead of knives.”

 

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Best Tokyo Art Find “Design Festa Gallery in Harajuku is the place to go for emerging artists. Anyone can showcase their work there – just rent a space on the wall for a few bucks and have your works seen by all.”

His Indulgence “Vintage robots, in particular ’80s models from Mattel and Gundam (a Japanese science fiction media and toy franchise). Ebay is a good place to start for a newbie collector. Now, I’m more hardcore and visit Yahoo Japan and the Italian collectors’ portal www.giocattolivecchi.com. I’ll wait for months to score the best buys. Another good place to check out is the Nakano Broadway mall in Tokyo – it’s anime and manga heaven.”

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Latest LeSportsac Tie-up “The art work I’ve created this time (part of the brand’s 40th anniversary celebration) is more detailed than what I did when I first teamed up with it in 2006. My lines are thicker and cleaner, and the colour combinations more interesting. Palette, a snow leopard character I specially came up with, embodies this perfectly.”

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This article was originally published in Female December 2014.