There are a few things you may want to note about motion graphic designer Chisa Yagi: she has season tickets to Carnegie Hall in New York, she enjoys international airports and, oh yeah, she has a fondness for the lower-case "g." Who else but a designer? "This may sound crazy, but it's always the lower-case 'g' that makes me decide if I want to use a typeface or not," says the soft-spoken Yagi. "I love to work with type; it's always a key element to my design."

Yagi is currently working as a designer with New York digital posthouse Charlex, for clients such as Cingular Wireless and Visa, including the notable "Superheroes" spot. Though she's only been working in the field for the last few years, primarily in print design, the 27-year-old already has an impressive track record.

Moving to the US eight years ago from Osaka, Japan, and with little understanding of English, Yagi opted to further her education with a fine arts degree. An artistic discipline was logical, thought Chisa: "If I take art classes, I wouldn't have to speak," she says. She later attended Yale University and got her Masters degree in graphic design, but not before a stint as an assistant editor at the Tokyo-based design magazine IDEA, where she worked as a text editor, translator and page designer.

Though she now works in motion graphics, Yagi admits it's been a challenge going from a static print sensibility to a more variable one. She did, however, receive recognition while at Yale from the American Institute of Graphic Design for a project called Timeface - an experimental typeface that takes information from various data sources and regenerates itself in 3D.

"I didn't even know what three quarters were when I started at Charlex," she says. "I sometimes need someone to remind me that I'm working for video. My world is very 2D, but now, I can think in 3D a little better."

Being in-between worlds is nothing new for Yagi and in fact, she relishes it, especially when it comes to being at the airport. Unlike many airport denizens, Yagi loves the airport experience and she's been back and forth between Japan and the U.S. enough times to know. "I love the area you go after you get the 'embarkment' stamp on your passport," she says. "It proves you've left the country but you haven't entered your destination country yet. It makes me feel like I don't belong to anywhere."

Charlex> http://www.charlex.com