Japan invented the creative user interface way before it was cool. Way before computers even existed.

Take the drop-down box, for example. All that information tucked away under a simple click. Japan has a more manual version that hides away in all of its 文芸誌 (bungei-shi, literary magazines), and it's called the 目次 (mokuji, index).

The indexes for Japanese literary magazines fold out 観音開き (kannon-biraki, double-door) style into four and as many as five or six pages. Opening one feels like unfolding a literary centerfold of sorts; the magazine reveals itself to you, but at the 巻頭 (kantō, front of the book or journal) rather than the middle, and horizontally rather than vertically.