As you might have guessed from the URL, my name is Kilian Muster. I’m a German typographer & geek who stranded in Tokyo 15 years ago.
I’m working at The Plant, Tokyo as Product Manager & Renaissance Man.
My background
After basic design studies at the Schule für Gestaltung in Basel, Switzerland, I learned the craft of typography in Germany including the fine art of setting lead type2. But also such peculiar things as using a photo-typesetting machine or operating an old Heidelberger ‘OHT’ jobbing press.
When I am amongst kindred spirits I speak a German dialect, you don’t understand3. I started learning Japanese some time around ’92 (reading and writing included), got a job as designer in Osaka 1996, moved to Tokyo in 1997 and never looked back. Here I got into multimedia early on and eventually web related work. I was fascinated by the new challenges of visual communication these new media offered. Soon usability and later the whole user experience became an area of special interest for me.
Short interludes at advertising agencies and video production companies finally got me into e-commerce where I went beyond mere end-user-facing UX intricacies, and was soon building not only websites, but whole (eco)systems: logistics, processes, operations, and some strategic thinking with a full-flavoured e-marketing topping. Thus I had the lucky opportunity of launching/running e-commerce operations in Japan for two major global brands (do your own googleing to find out who, if you really can’t help it).
More Geekdom
I have used computers since the Commodore 64, dabbled in Linux since 1993 and nowadays really like Ubuntu – however for design work I still prefer OS X.
I’ve also setup, run and administered my own share of FreeBSD, Linux and Mac OS X servers and services and have done multimedia development for years. When I find the time I still do HTML/CSS coding (Coda.app is my editor of choice). This website and the templates are all handcrafted by my humble self.
Podcast
I happened to be one of the earlier German podcasters. Despite its age my podcast is still around. Admittingly it sits mostly dormant on a webserver, but every now and then I still feel like posting a new episode, and maybe if I wait long enough the podcast might become “vintage” and be worth something (e.g. audio from the pre direct-to-mind-transmission age)…
It’s called “Kilians Podkost”. Yes, that’s a “kost” as in “Feinkost” (delicatessen). Hint: it’s a sophisticated wordplay for ze Germans, and that’s why you probably don’t want to listen to it anyway – it’s in German.
1 The utensil I’m peeking through on the photo is a thread counter, often used by printers and typographers to check the quality of a print.
2 If you wonder what the graphic on this blog is, it depicts a composing stick used for lining up (setting) lead type.
3 Alemannisch – so now you know why French, Spaniards and others call Germany “Allemagne, Alemania, Allemanha” etc.
