[january 2010 update]
incredibly superfuture is now into its 11th year!
despite the first half of this year being a dogs breakfast, all systems are now in relatively good shape with tons of major and minor changes starting to filter through the site over the next few months. another mega upgrade to our content management system currently underway will enable big improvements to the way data is organized and displayed which will greatly improve the usability of supertravel in particular. the biggest to-do item for 2010 is getting supershop up and running for all supertalk users. also watch out in 2010 for the long anticipated launch of our city superguide iphone apps...!
[november 2008 update]
during 2009 superfuture is undergoing an extreme makeover and will return as the website it was always supposed to be! this has been no simple undertaking and has involved a huge team of information architects, designers, and technical geniuses slaving away for what seems like eternity... we are relaunching superfuture 4.0 with a revamped 'supertalk' and a new 'supershop'. superfuture's original 'supertravel' website has been massively upgraded and now includes over 6000 geocoded reviews in 200 plus cities viewable on either superfuture maps or google. we have also repackaged 'supernews' into an expanded blog format. user administration has been consolidated into 'supercontrol' which will give all current members of supertalk access to all areas.
if you want to read more about superfuture's superpast then check out this original manifesto [still word for word unedited] i wrote back in 1999 when i launched the site.
[september 1999 blurb]
>> the scenario >>
I regularly have friends [and others] visit me in Tokyo, however in the last few years rarely find time to show people around. Instead, it goes something like this ::::: Rendezvous at friends hotel bar > grab their cheesy 'Official Tourist Map of Tokyo' > attack with flouro orange marker pen. Harajuku instantly becomes "groovy area", and essential places of interest are usually described as "...near the west exit of Shibuya station in the basement opposite McDonalds..." Of course the problem here is that Shibuya is the most congested shopping zone in Tokyo. Even worse, Tokyo is the most congested urban city on the planet. Add to that > no street names > everything written in Kanji > and constantly changing shop locations. Obviously my friends aren't really going to see half the things they should. Unfortunately there has never a been a solution – until NOW! >> the solution >> Redesign the cheesy 'Official Tourist Map of Tokyo' for me and my friends [...and of course anyone else who might be interested...]
>> urban obsession >>
Having said that...I should point out that I'm no journalist – [...and wasn't exactly planning on a career as a cartographer either] – I'm just a regular designer who happens to like roaming the world's urban jungles in search of cutting edge design, fashion, and street culture. Having lived in Tokyo for most of the past 7 years, this is becoming a bit of an obsession, though not difficult to understand when you realize I live 500 metres from Tokyu Hands – [the best department store on earth]...400 metres from GA gallery – [the best architectural gallery bookstore in the world]....and 300 metres from Shinjuku station – [the most congested railway station in the universe]. Incredibly, there is virtually nothing I can think of that I cannot purchase within a 10 minute mountainbike ride from home, though strangely, I rarely need to buy things [clothing the exception] and live content in swanky spartan minimalism – white concrete floor, piles of magazines, and CDs.That's it...
>> tasty >>
Making superfuturecity suit everyones tastes is also not the point.. It is aimed at people who might like the same sort of 'things' that I do...luckily for everyone I like a lot of 'things' – 'taste' often has nothing to do with it. I appreciate cultivated trash just as much as vulgar extravagance and like the extremes no matter how weird, wacky, tacky, obnoxious, or pretentious. The only thing I dislike is all the monotonous mediocrity in the middle.
>> yuppies >>
So maybe I should describe my [visiting Tokyo] friends...Given this unenviable task, I would unfortunately have to stereotype many of them as design / fashion / music / photography / architecture / art / related urban professional 'edgy creative types'. [...they sound like a pack of REALLY vile people who you would want to avoid – however some of them are actually real nice...] I must also add to that group my mother and her assorted contacts who seem to frequent this place.
>> maps from hell >>
I have being telling people for years that I would one day make specialized maps of Tokyo [and for once have actually lived up to the promise] Having worked as Art Director for 3 Tokyo city magazines [who all used bad maps] I know that maps of Tokyo are the last thing any graphic designer wants to make, so I have procrastinated for ages.
>> mutation >>
In the end this website has mutated into something quite different from what I originally envisioned. These maps are specialty maps of selected areas for anyone vaguely interested in the same things as me. I have decided for you what you need to see, and in Tokyo that usually means the streets. If you really need to see a temple then go to Kyoto...
>> the monster >>
What started out as a simple solution to [what was not exactly a huge problem in the first place!?] has turned into relatively complex monster. Maybe there was no problem to start with? Maybe I just invented a problem to justify a solution?! ...I'm not too sure. However, whatever way I look at it, one thing is now certain – the SOLUTION is now the problem...
>> globe >>
It all depends if anyone actually uses this site...??? and finds it useful. If it is popular, then I plan to attack other cities around the globe...so if you are at all interested in getting involved – please contact me.
>> arigato >>
to all those fab people who have helped with getting this website completed up to this stage.
wayne > tokyo > september 01 1999
so you can get an idea of how the site has developed over the decade, here are a few screenshots taken at various times since 1999...
superfuture 1.0 [1999 - 2003]
superfuture started as a city guide and was often refered to as superfuturecity. at the time i was also running a design consultancy and so that became superfuture media. it started with just a guide to tokyo. my then second home in sydney became city 02, and new york was the third city we attacked.
if only making websites was as simple as it was in 2001... the first version of superfuture was made in html however that quickly became a nightmare to keep updated. after about a year we started working on a database to manage the rapidly growing shop reviews. the database was made in cold fusion and was quite advanced software at the time. getting it to work on netscape or explorer was another matter...
basic but super functional...! the left hand nav menus were made using some funky show hide javascript.
superfuture 2.0 [2003 - 2006]
front page screenshot taken on our forth birthday. the ad in center was for diesels brilliant 'work hard' campaign by kessels kramer. every day for a month we loaded up a new 'calender image' on the site. the month previously, we had worked on designing promo stuff for the extravaganza opening party of the herzog & de meuron designed prada store in aoyama. by this stage we had a fully populated news blog [wordpress hadn't even started], our 'schnaps' photo blog, hotel bookings, concierge, and heavy duty cartographic services pumping out reviews, maps and other stuff. a few month later, in december 2003 we launched our supertalk messageboard.
superfuture 3.0 [2006 - 2008]
supertalk went ballistic and quickly took on a life of its own. it grew so quickly that we were crashing our servers monthly and needed to upgrade our systems several times a year. the review database also kept expanding and cities grew from about 20 to 200. of course all this growth created other problems - the biggest being that we we running several different databases and all were on different platforms and located in different servers in different countries. it was obvious that at some point we were going to need to consolidate... and eventually this consolidation became the current superfuture 4.0
the old review layout...
