If anyone thought that the advice I gave was worth listening to, I might have started this article with "I get a lot of questions..." I get a lot of questions about how to properly clean my mini-lathe, I get a lot of questions about how best to tell a man you're in love. But nobody gives a god damn what I think, so I'll just let you know that I've heard word of a good number of people asking how it is that they can get a piece of the graphic design job pie in the land everyone seems to call their next permanant residency.

Courtesy Jean Snow's blog, PingMag (in Japanese & English for your reading pleasure), has an interview up with Normal Design's Ross McBride (he would be the white guy pictured in this article...), who himself started working in Japan as a graphic designer, and moved thereafter into the perhaps trickier art of product design.

The article is a little light on information, but it does have some advice that should serve as a wake up text-message to those would be artistes out there looking to sell their deviantart chibi-kawaii-robo maid pictures to that Japanese population that just loves them so.

In short, McBride wisely makes the case against a certain common strategy (read on); there have only been a few outsiders who could seemingly beat (or compete with) the Japanese at their own game. Trevor Brown comes to mind, first and foremost.

Does the world need another, (or even one) MegaTokyo? Do I need to answer that question?