Eric Vivian “A Day in Yakushima”

Yakushima is a small island located in the south-west of Kyushu, Japan. But every year, many tourists come here to enjoy sightseeing, hiking, snorkeling and so on. We are trying to spread news and information not only about Yakushima’s nature, but also its fantastic life and culture here.

―”For a long time, we knew we really wanted some sort of change, we wanted independence and some freedom and it was kind of a blessing in disguise they decide to close that office. We had other job offers within San Francisco. But I thought “Hey. Maybe this is a sign.”So through everything, came here. Let’s try it.”

Graphic designer Eric Vivian, who designed our Yakushima Heart TV’s logo, moved from San Francisco to Yakushima two years ago. How has his life changed in this island? We visited his home studio in Miyanoura town.

Music: Acoustic Breeze – Bensound.com

The Reason They Came to Yakushima

For a long time, we knew we really wanted some sort of change, we wanted independence and some freedom and it was kind of a blessing in disguise they decide to close that office. And we had an opportunity to transfer to another city. We had other job offers within San Francisco.

But I thought “Hey. Maybe this is a sign.” Our daughter’s going to be three next year. So through everything, came here. Let’s try it.

Yakushima Heart TV, the Meaning of the Logo

The Wilson Stump and the heart in the Wilson Stump was you know a big goal as far as a reference point for imagery.

We also knew that this inspiring foreigners as well as Japanese people interested in coming to Yakushima and trying to talk about that personal connection and that dialogue was another important point.

This was a starting point but started going and looking at different container shapes and thinking about Yakushima as that round island as kind of a common theme.

It does a couple of things, talks about the layers of growth within a tree, or tree rings, and a little bit about the green island.

Lifes on Yakushima

Everyone’s been so lovely here and it’s been so nice having the family support with the kids too. At first we felt like…, the Undokai and asking us to participate in the Matsuri and Yoshikonao helps collect neighborhood funds for a little community newspaper.

At first it felt almost like a social pressure that we had to be involved, but we realized what a great benefit it was when we started participating in those, and that’s how we got to know our neighbors, and now we can say hi to everybody as we walk around and feeling like as we are the part of the bigger community around. That’s really been nice.