Just 40 hours after Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami struck in 2011, Japanese designer Eisuke Tachikawa launched OLIVE, a crowd-sourced wiki of tips and DIY advice to survive in a disaster. The response was overwhelming. The site was translated by volunteers into many languages and was also turned into pamphlets, which were handed out to evacuees.
Following up on this initiative Tachikawa and his design firm Nosigner have teamed up with Sendai-based Kohshin Trading to produce The Second Aid. The smartly designed disaster kit looks like a large dictionary. Open it up and you’ll find a trove of life-saving supplies that includes the book, food and water (that lasts 5 years), tools, toiletries, medical supplies and much more. Each is clearly separated into boxes labeled GOODS and FOODS. It’s available on Amazon JP for 8424 yen.
Putting together a disaster kit is something that’s always on our to-do list and never gets done. So Nosigner has done it for us and it’s everything you need hold you over for the 72 hours (on average) it takes for rescue to arrive.