Five students from Akita University and Tomioka Shoten (President Hiroki Tomioka), a birch craft manufacturer and retailer in Senboku City, announced the development of a birch craft calendar. The calendar is a rotating version of a tea caddy and comes with a photo frame. The company created the design by the students. The city plans to add it to its hometown tax return gifts from April.
The calendar is made by dividing a plain leather tea caddy lid into three rings, with the numbers for the month and day carved into the outside. The display is adjusted by turning the rings. The ebony photo frame is decorated with a floral pattern reminiscent of the cherry blossoms of Kakunodate, and the edge of the wood is made of plain leather.
If properly cared for, birch crafts can last for over 100 years. The name "Perpetual Calendar Haruka" was chosen with the tradition of birch crafts in Kakunodate, which has been passed down since the Edo period, in mind, and the idea of it being passed down through generations of families. The concept is not just to mark the days and years, but also to mark the family history by displaying photos.
The designs were done by Riho Ishizaki, Mai Endo, Kotomi Sasaki, Aya Shindo, and Yurie Yokoyama, second-year students in the Department of Regional Culture, Faculty of Education and Culture. The five students chose regional branding of traditional crafts as an initiative for their basic regional studies class in their first year. They took birch crafts as their theme and started product development in August 2022.
He announced the idea for the calendar at an event related to the 39th National Convention of the Traditional Crafts Month (KOUGEI EXPO in AKITA) held in Akita City in November of the same year. At the time, the calendar was in a whitish wooden photo frame and rod shape, but later, thinking that "chic colors would match modern lifestyles," he went for darker colors and made it a rotating calendar, taking advantage of the shape of the tea caddy that symbolizes birch crafts.
Even after obtaining their credits and finishing their classes, the five students continued to work on the development independently, saying, "We want to continue until we can take it to a tangible form," and have held multiple meetings with President Tomioka to discuss the detailed design.
The presentation, held on the 13th at the Kakunodate Building of Senboku City Hall, was attended by the five students, President Tomioka, Mayor Tomoaki Taguchi, and Associate Professor Shinichi Ito of the Akita University Industrial and Academic Collaboration Promotion Organization, who supervised the students. Mayor Taguchi said, "Birch crafts are the pride of Senboku City. I am grateful that they have developed such a wonderful product." President Tomioka said, "We created this product while having fun coming up with new ideas."
Sasaki said, "We would be happy if the products we designed were placed in people's homes. We want people to feel the passage of time through the calendars and photographs."
There are no plans to sell them commercially, and they will only be sold as gifts in return for hometown tax donations. According to President Tomioka, if a price were to be put on them, they would be worth 27,500 yen.
(Ohara Shintaro)
The calendar is made by dividing a plain leather tea caddy lid into three rings, with the numbers for the month and day carved into the outside. The display is adjusted by turning the rings. The ebony photo frame is decorated with a floral pattern reminiscent of the cherry blossoms of Kakunodate, and the edge of the wood is made of plain leather.
If properly cared for, birch crafts can last for over 100 years. The name "Perpetual Calendar Haruka" was chosen with the tradition of birch crafts in Kakunodate, which has been passed down since the Edo period, in mind, and the idea of it being passed down through generations of families. The concept is not just to mark the days and years, but also to mark the family history by displaying photos.
The designs were done by Riho Ishizaki, Mai Endo, Kotomi Sasaki, Aya Shindo, and Yurie Yokoyama, second-year students in the Department of Regional Culture, Faculty of Education and Culture. The five students chose regional branding of traditional crafts as an initiative for their basic regional studies class in their first year. They took birch crafts as their theme and started product development in August 2022.
He announced the idea for the calendar at an event related to the 39th National Convention of the Traditional Crafts Month (KOUGEI EXPO in AKITA) held in Akita City in November of the same year. At the time, the calendar was in a whitish wooden photo frame and rod shape, but later, thinking that "chic colors would match modern lifestyles," he went for darker colors and made it a rotating calendar, taking advantage of the shape of the tea caddy that symbolizes birch crafts.
Even after obtaining their credits and finishing their classes, the five students continued to work on the development independently, saying, "We want to continue until we can take it to a tangible form," and have held multiple meetings with President Tomioka to discuss the detailed design.
The presentation, held on the 13th at the Kakunodate Building of Senboku City Hall, was attended by the five students, President Tomioka, Mayor Tomoaki Taguchi, and Associate Professor Shinichi Ito of the Akita University Industrial and Academic Collaboration Promotion Organization, who supervised the students. Mayor Taguchi said, "Birch crafts are the pride of Senboku City. I am grateful that they have developed such a wonderful product." President Tomioka said, "We created this product while having fun coming up with new ideas."
Sasaki said, "We would be happy if the products we designed were placed in people's homes. We want people to feel the passage of time through the calendars and photographs."
There are no plans to sell them commercially, and they will only be sold as gifts in return for hometown tax donations. According to President Tomioka, if a price were to be put on them, they would be worth 27,500 yen.
(Ohara Shintaro)