November 2000.

Almost a year before I put Beinghunted online this collaboration between Futura and Levi’s Japan launched with an elaborate microsite.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s the one gallery/store that served as a global hub for the coolest projects and products, the one that hosted some of the best art shows, was Houston in Seattle. Houston offered a wide selection and archive of the best Japanese Magazines such as Relax, they produced their own collectibles such as the Futura digi-print canvasses and Houston was one–if not the only one–online store to sell the first Kaws Companion figure by Realmadhectic and Bounty Hunter. It was definitely the only shop to use Futura and Bathing Ape packing tape for their shipments…

Apart from their physical space Houston also curated an extensive website with features, interviews and online exhibitions to accompany each of their projects. For the Levi’s x Futura collaboration Houston produced a microsite that served as a 13-day countdown for the product launch in Japan and the charity auction of the signed pieces hosted at the store in November 2000.

The 13 Flash clips embedded in the this online feature convey the same aesthetics that Futura applied to the digital collages of his online portfolio at that time (home.dti.net/futura): roughly animated CCTV-style footage, original drawings, vectorized illustrations of his Pointmen, but also screen shots of email conversations about the project–all intertwined with actual product shots and design details of the Levi’s design collaboration.