was a Japanese pop artist and

art director Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film industry, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and ...

born in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

. Noda spent much of her career working as a freelance art director. She directed multiple campaigns for brands such as Nike, Laforet, and Panasonic. In addition to her commercial works, she also was a prolific artist, taking on various solo projects. Such projects include: her half-panda sculptures, ''Hanpanda''; a collaboration clothing brand with American artist

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, ''Broken Label''; and her unique hair hats. She held multiple solo exhibits throughout her career, and a post-humous exhibit was held to commemorate her work in 2011, a testament to her legacy and reputation as a designer. Noda's works are defined by ''artificiality'' and ''surreality'', balancing between visual art and commercial relations with a high degree of creativity and non-conformity in their aesthetic and narration. She founded the design firm "Uchuu Country," where Japanese art director Yuni Yoshida also worked until starting her own agency in 2007. Noda began her career directing advertising campaigns for Harajuku's

Laforet is a department store, residence, and museum complex located in the Harajuku commercial and entertainment district of the Shibuya neighborhood, in Tokyo, Japan. Constructed over part of the old Tokyo Central Church, a newer church located behind ...

shopping mall. Among her most well-known advertising works are the short film Mariko Takahashi's Fitness Video for Being Appraised as an "Ex-fat Girl", the half-panda-half-something-else Hanpanda life-sized figures, and the video for Japanese singer Yuki's song "Sentimental Journey". Other works include a television advertisement for

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...

(with music by

Jack White John Anthony White (; born July 9, 1975), commonly known as Jack White, is an American musician, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the duo the White Stripes. White has enjoyed consistent critical and popular success and is widely c ...

), a collaboration with Medicom Toy to produce original Nagi Noda Be@rbricks, a video for the

Scissor Sisters Scissor Sisters were an American pop rock band formed in 2001. Its members include Jake Shears and Ana Matronic as vocalists, Babydaddy as multi-instrumentalist, Del Marquis as lead guitar/bassist, and Randy Real (who replaced Paddy Boom) as dr ...

song "She's My Man", and the video for "Hearts On Fire" by

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. It was the last music video she made. ''The Works of Nagi Noda often make a disconcerting impression, with an aesthetic ranging from surreal to bizarre to poetic.'' (biography at ''Women in Graphic Design'') Noda cites her unusual upbringing as a big influence in her work. In a 2003 interview with DAZEDExcite, she recalled how her parents would take her to look for UFOs or make her watch TV in black and white so she could learn to imagine color. Nagi died on September 7, 2008, at age 34, after surgical complications from injuries sustained in a traffic accident the previous year.

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