www.terratag.com

Paul Nicholson is a genuine Jap-o-phile. He co-founded P21 and has been designing for the company for 12 years. "What is now Terratag originally went out as Prototype 21, the brand which started selling January 94," he explains. "Now, the problem we realised a year or two ago is that we wanted to expand and we were caught in conflict having a company called Prototype 21 and having a brand called Prototype 21, because it was so well established we thought it would be better to relaunch the brand I do under a different name."

Terratag may be primarily a T-shirt brand, but it's definitely got legs. The core idea is that it is a British label inspired by Japanese pop culture. "The way it works now is that I am taking Japanese themes and trying to hybridise them and mix them up with European and particularly London-based kind of style themology. This season, it's all about the robots. Each season I tend to focus on a different thing."

For Paul, the starting point for Terratag was Sigue Sigue Sputnik's Flaunt It album. "I liked the look of it so I started researching where it all came from - I got into the comic books, animie and it just went from there .. What was an introduction to a culture through pop trash culture, developed into a much broader love and appreciation of it, whether it be traditional art or cinema."

He got back from Tokyo three weeks ago and is still buzzing about it. "A lot of time in Tokyo I was just randomly drawing, road signs Japanese number plates - I just sketched what I saw, so you get a more instinctive response to what was happening. You can't really plan anything like this it just happens. It's a nice way of working."

As well as Japanese food ("After a meal in Japan you feel really fresh") and popular culture, Paul admires the creativity of the people. "I think a lot of westerners know Japanese for copying, whether it is a transistor radio or high fashion, there was always this idea that the Japanese took an idea and copied it . But having been in Japan and seen how they work, they are very very hardworking quite intensely creative people. They only need to be shown a sniff of an idea and they will develop it way beyond what a lot of people do in the West. Speaking from a point of view as a fan of their graphics and popular culture."

On his last trip, Paul spent a lot of time exploring boutiques and developing ideas for Terratag's Japanese customers. "The people who buy it in Japan are quite underground, it would be seen as quite experimental. Y'know all the brands and all the popular designers in Japan exclusively use English. I went all over Tokyo to these tiny boutiques and they all use English."

He's been learning Japanese for 5 months (although he's a bit behind on his homework) and has been mixing Japanese text with English ideas on his designs. Terratag, he tells me, translates as "to shine even in order to be stupid." On the Terratag website forum, fans talk about their favourite designs and pour praise on the label. There's also a following for Terratag's Erotic T-shirts, inspired by Japanese Hentai magazines. (The erotic T's are sold separately from the main range, see www.terratag.com/erotic).

Paul intends to draw upon his own archive of music designs (which includes work for Aphex Twin and Orbital) and being more of a musical influence into the mix. "Over 8 years I developed a style of graphics so this year it will be about mixing it up more."

Watch out for a Japanese art exhibition and a range of Terratag toys later this year.

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