Hi there.
…Where has the rainy season gone?

It’s been so hot that I’m starting to doubt whether the active memories I have of this time of year are even real. On sunny lunch breaks at school, I used to catch lizards near the chicken coop, and when it was cloudy or rainy, I’d search for geckos in the gap behind the gym’s fire door. Those memories are really mine… right? (´・ω・｀;)

Japanese summer is only going to get hotter from here. And just like a cumulonimbus cloud rapidly swelling in the sky, these fast-developing headlines keep me buzzing with excitement.


I was deeply moved, so I create it in a traditional Japanese lettering and ukiyo-e style.
Turning 77“七七歳” is called Kiju“喜寿” in Japan, which comes from the variant character 㐂 used for “joy” (喜).
So, This time, I chose the phonetic kanji “喜一” as a poetic rendering of July 1st“一日”. For us as website designers and content creators, it’s truly a joyful day!

Hello there.
In a previous article, I mentioned buying a can badge machine and producing badges using my own artwork. Since then, customers have purchased them, and they’ve been well received—things are going very well!

This article is about surviving the Reiwa era through desktop manufacturing, aiming for even greater heights.

As the title suggests, I wanted to incorporate gold into my can badges using special printing techniques.

Initially, my plan was to print the design with an inkjet printer, then print the gold areas with a monochrome laser printer, and finally use a hot stamping paper to transfer the gold foil with an iron. However, the 14,000-yen laser printer I bought last year failed to align the print correctly, whether using the paper tray or manual feed, so I had to abandon that approach.

Then, I came up with the idea of creating a gold-specific printing plate to ensure proper alignment—essentially a Reiwa-era update on traditional Ukiyo-e registration. In traditional multi-color Ukiyo-e woodblock printing, “見当 (kentō)” refers to the carved registration marks that ensure precise alignment of different color layers. By combining this concept with the “R” from Reiwa, I named the system “KENTOR.”

There were no rough sketches or detailed design plans—I had everything mapped out in my head.

For the printing plate, I wrote the characters in Procreate and exported them as a PSD file. Then, I used Illustrator’s image trace function to convert the design into Bézier curves and exported it as an SVG file. Finally, I extruded the design in BambuStudio and 3D-printed it using the A1 mini.

This step went smoothly.


When I looked up how to make stamps with a 3D printer on YouTube, I noticed that many people forget to flip the design horizontally during the first print. Well, as someone who calls myself an Ukiyo-e artist, that’s a mistake I wouldn’t make!
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Hello!
I immediately purchased the Pro-N4 badge-making machine and tried making my own original badges!
At first, I considered buying a parallel-imported “latest model 2025” product from Amazon or Yahoo!, but after reading some intense reviews such as “the product image showed metal parts for the sliding section, but what arrived was made of plastic,” I decided to spend an additional 20,000 yen for peace of mind—a conservative choice, if I may say so.

To state upfront—I’m extremely satisfied. I wholeheartedly recommend everyone try making badges by hand!

First, print your illustration!

I chose Kokuyo semi-gloss photo paper (0.14mm thick). After researching, I found that regular copy paper lacks sharpness and thicker paper tends to cause failures. Based on what I found, this seemed to be a good choice.

For cutting tools, I used the NT circle cutter clear iC-1500P. Initially, I bought the OLFA compass cutter, but I found it difficult to use as it started loosening while in use, so I replaced it. …Paper isn’t free, so mistakes aren’t an option.
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So sorry. I am not capable of translating this article into English.

I had hoped to finish One digital UKIYOE drawing by Setsubun, but I didn’t make it in time. The schedule of a sole proprietor can change with just one email request for a quote. The kanji character that was supposed to be used in the drawing for Setsubun would have been shelved…which seemed like a waste, so I released it as a lettering work. Read more