Japanese Popart artist Takashi Murakami who is frequently called the Japanese Andy Warhol opened up his exhibition at the Musem of Contemporary Arts in Los Angeles in late 2007. The most interesting thing about it was propably a temporary pop-up store from Louis Vuitton in the museum which sold a limited sortiment of Vuitton Monogram bags finished with special Murakami artwork.

The collaboration went on in 2009 when Murakami designed not only more handbags but also a whole store in Tokyo Omotesando district. The whole store has been transformed into Murakami land, sporting his characters on the walls as well as in the form of plushtoys of all sizes.

The most beloved of those - the Putipanda is being released at select retailers in the upcoming weeks. The Murakami x Louis Vuitton Putipanda uses Murakami’s design and color to create two different sized plush items including a larger sized plush toy and a smaller mobile phone charm.

Takashi Murakami already worked with other overseas artists creating for example the cover art for Kanye Wests latest release as well as a golden pandabear statue to promote this. Murakamis company, Kaikai Kiki (kaikaikiki means something both elegant and bizarre), produces his art and its spinoffs.

By now it employs around 100 artists, animators, writers and artisans and has an office in Tokyo, two studios in Tokyo suburbs and one in Long Island City, Queens. And of course he belongs to a long tradition of Japanese artists who lavished equal artistry on painted screens, ceramics, calligraphy or lacquerware boxes — which were in some ways the Vuitton bags of their time.

Taking into account Murakamis creativity it is no wonder wo what extent the promotion of the Vuitton collaboration is going. His latest work for the brand is called Superflat First Love, an anime short film. The movie was directed by anime-master Mamoru Hosoda and is based on Murakami's ideas and characters and of course there is plenty of Louis Vuitton product placement as well.

Besides that Team Murakami/Vuitton collaborated with Japanese agency SET to offer the first Designer QR Codes (Quick Response Code), which to date have been looking pretty boring. Those QR Codes are matrix codes which allows its contents to be decoded at high speed for example opening up links to retail commercials. (The New York Times)