Gadgetopia

I think Kioken could still be alive -- it's just their Web site isn't kicking right now.

http://www.kiokenuk.com -- their UK counterpart is in operation, and the domain name kioken.com is still valid through 2004. The phone book still has them listed too.

I notice there was a Usenet posting in March from somebody @kioken.com. Nothing since then though.

Anybody else have any insight?

Their UK site looks good. Very much looks like the company I saw on CNN back in 2000.

Folks,

All I know is, that Kioken was and still the best. Saying they did beatufil work is an understatement. I can't understand why they aren't around any more, but I am determined to find out. I am also determined to intern with them. But I fear that I may be too late.

And when I do I will let you all know, call me if you know anything about them 917 607 5509 Dwayne

They had talent, but their usability was pretty horrible. J-Lo's first site, in particular was garbage. It was this little box o' Flash swimming in the browser window. I visited once and I couldn't figure out how the hell to work it.

I don't know about the UK co. either. Half the "past projects" examples are dead links and they still have a link to the defunct kioken.com on their front page. Looks deserted to me.

Kioken is dead. Over rated for sure.

Hi, just stumbled onto this, and when is saw the hope in dwayne's post i thought it would be wise to help him out :)

Kioken is dead. They went bankrupt somewhere in 2001. There were a damn good company, and still there work is one of the best around (motown cubixrobotsforeveyone.com are the only two that are still online)

One of the original founders of kioken is still kicking ass (i'm not sure if he's still working with the other founder) but you can check out his freaky actionscript wizardry at http://www.joshuadavis.com/ and there you will also find his old work from his barney's days.

The kioken UK sucks btw,let it be.

I found this in a cached page on Google:

"At Kioken, $350,000 will buy you a homepage and five templates - nothing close to a full site; Sony is billed $100,000 a month for a yearlong project."

On another:

"And in the graphic design corner, wearing the greyscale trunks, weighing in at 500K per site (that's dollars, not bytes)... Kioken(oken-oken-oken), firing clients left and right, and wielding Flash as if the plug-in itself were built into Joe Newbie's genetic makeup."

Still can't find anything about them filing for bankruptcy.

hi - thought I'd jump in.

:)

--

don't believe everything you read - we didn't make, nor charged the type of prices people thought we did - barney's was made for about 50k I think.

anyway... this story is very long, but I hope I can clear up some small points without writing a novel.

1. I wasn't a founder, just an employee.

2. Kioken was owned by Peter Kang and Gene Na - and they Sold Kioken to a larger Ad Agency (epb) - so kioken was a studio under an umbrella of other companies.

When the dot com crash hit - we were the only company under the umbrella that was making money, because of this we were supporting all the other companies under the umbrella that were failing - so you can see how over a period of time all the other failing companies would eventually drag us down.

the final moment was Sept. 11th - the economy came to a stand still and we could no longer support everything and all companies closed.

1. kioken UK was started by 2 former kioken members, ant & otto, and I think use the name kioken UK as a separate company - having no ties at all to the original kioken.

2. most original kioken members have disbursed to new projects...

Pete and Gene worked on a documentary film on the Street Fighter Video Game culture called "bang the machine".

Mike Sheppard (who I did motown with) - http://www.baseinc.net is now working at http://www.wddg.com.

Erik Wysocan (who I did barneys with) - has been jamming freelance stuff - http://www.anyorganization.com

my assistant - Futaba Hayashi - http://www.futabita.com now works at RockStar Games - http://www.rockstargames.com

my other assistant - Alex Chen - runs tons of kick ass work off of his site at http://www.carbonatedjazz.com

And I started my own studio with Branden Hall - http://www.joshuadavis.com | joshua davis studios.

and there you have it.

:)

WOW, from the man himself!!

Thanks for the info Joshua, I have myself for a long time wondered what the deal with Kioken was....You guys inspired me so much to learn flash and push it to the limits....even though I am not at that level yet :)

But all things in due time :)

BTW love your site, and your concepts

Going through all of the former Kioken employees' sites drove me nutty. I couldn't figure out how to naviage any of them. Granted I didn't spend much time trying to figure them out but why would I? I think all of these people are great artists, and would do great print work, but as far as creating usable websites go, they're pretty worthless.

not usable? i'm sporting html text links at cjazz. come on now :)

Hi just wanted to comment on what Josh said. I came across Monkeyclan http://www.monkeyclan.com/ No mention of Kai Pham design director of Kioken. Why is that?

Hi just wanted to comment on what Josh said. I came across Monkeyclan http://www.monkeyclan.com/ No mention of Kai Pham design director of Kioken. Why is that?

I didn't mention Kai Pham because he left years before Kioken closed. ( I can't remember how long, but maybe 2 years before kioken closed ).

and since the thread was about what happened to Kioken -- meaning what happened at the end, why did the studio close ? it doesn't make much sense to mention Kai who hadn't been at kioken at the end.

I didn't mention Kai Pham because he left years before Kioken closed. ( I can't remember how long, but maybe 2 years before kioken closed ).

and since the thread was about what happened to Kioken -- meaning what happened at the end, why did the studio close ? it doesn't make much sense to mention Kai who hadn't been at kioken at the end.

Josh is a great designer. I have been following his work since 99'. I met him (heavily tatooed) at a party in nyc, a long time ago (4 years back), I told him that I was attending Pratt, and he mentioned himself as a alumni, and that we were both fellow Long Islander's.

Well I dropped out of Pratt (00'), because the internet, and the entire design world was just boring me (along with everyone else). Half of the design world never had a clue about quality design; and got famous from medicore sites, thanks to k10k.net. Since; I attended NYU's audio engineering program and graduated; enjoying myself as an engineer at 'the hit factory', and 'lobo recordings'.

As for kioken goes...well there site was NEVER updated! The work they did was pretty solid, but nothing to go ballistic about. I interned at Razorfish which I thought did better work; for 2 weeks untill I quit the whole industry.

Great designer's: www.gmunk.com www.chapter3.net

I love the old Jennifer Lopez site! and all the other Kioken sites! They're sites were incredible. Too bad Kioken is gone.. :(

Yeah, when I was working at Kioken, a typical day involved browsing through Comm Arts and Print magazines, and then finding stuff to copy. Then we'd sit around drinking Zima all day, and chillin on the phone with designers talking about hip-hop and spinning. It was great, a little b-ball late in the day and then back to getting hammered. Ya know, smoke a little crack too.

Do anyone have a copy of that quicktime movie of the C.N.N. interview.