Craig wrote this last Saturday. he's on his way to New York right now. — Cletus

And so the hectic month of February begins. A traveller from America arrived at my doorstep just moments ago. Sunday we're off to way below-freezing Sapporo to indulge in hot-springs, crab and hot sake. And then on Wednesday I'm off to NYC as a judge for the 85th Annual Art Directors Club Awards. From there it's New Orleans with the CMP gang, but I'll leave that for another post.

I was invited a little over three weeks ago — pretty short notice, I thought — to come out to NYC and judge the print category for the ADC awards. Humbled, but really, really busy, I actually thought about declining. After some schedule-clearing phone calls, I decided to accept, and I think in retrospect it would have been ridiculous to decline.

So, to say the least, I'm excited at the prospect of leaving my rather insulated world of art and design here in Tokyo and branching out. I'm also looking forward to going through all of the submitted entries and getting a good feel for the what's happening in design right now. Maybe take home some good book ideas.

I should have Net access in my hotel room, so I'll be posting updates from the front lines of judging. Or at the very least, depending on my schedule and jet lag, I'll post a good wrapup of how the event went after it's all finished.