Akiko Hayashi

Bio

Born in Tsu city, Mie prefecture. Graduated from Nanzan University (Nagoya, Japan) with a degree in British and American Studies and a focus in Intercultural Communication. Studied advertising design for one year at the University of San Francisco in California. After graduating, I worked for one of the leading Japanese toy companies, Takara. Then I became a graphic designer for design production firms. I switched from print media design to web design, was hired to be the exclusive web designer / art director for avex, a major record company. At avex, I designed the official websites for both the company and its artists. Now I am an independent web designer, founder and owner of Aluminum, Inc..
My expertise is Photoshop. I write Photoshop related books and articles for magazines.

What I do

I categorize myself as a UI designer. I design interfaces for any media; website, print, mobile, etc. Recently more and more people use smartphones and their applications need more beautiful and functional UIs. The release of iPad will change the publishing industry and I am looking to the new concept of UI design. Among millions of applications, how do people choose one? What can you do if you want to sell your things? Good UI is one of the answers. Creating something that makes people happy and want to buy — that is my job.

I am also focusing on intercultural communication. For example, I help foreign companies/clients in Japan localize design to meet the Japanese standard, as well as for the domestic clients, vice versa.

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