DESIGN.md — Taiho Ventures (Cinematic Performance Dark)

Per-style brand authority for src/styles/cinematic-perf-cvc/. Produced and maintained by columbus-design-md-builder. Read by columbus-design-author at scaffold time and by columbus-design-iterator on every refinement. Treat sections 1–7 as canonical truth.

1. Aesthetic Anchor

Primary family: Cinematic Dark — full-bleed motion, near-black ground, single signal accent, editorial pacing. Secondary remix: Editorial Minimalism (Apple product-page lineage) — for negative-space discipline and single-statement folds. Reference brands: Peloton (cinematic-dark with single red signal, athletic-condensed display type) × Apple Vision Pro product page (full-bleed pacing, statement-per-fold restraint) × Patagonia Films (documentary photographic gravity, no stock imagery). Visual atmosphere: Dark, in-motion, premium. The page reads like the opening of a documentary, not a fund tearsheet. Heavy condensed display headlines anchor each fold; everything else recedes. Taiho Red is rare and structural — when it appears, it means something. Film grain across all surfaces gives the dark ground warmth so it reads as cinematographic, not technological. Every direct peer (Astellas, Ono, MRL, SR One, 5AM, Third Rock) plays warm-cream/clean-white minimalism — this concept's distance from that baseline is the point.

2. Brand Voice

Adjectives: plainspoken, knowledgeable, measured, self-aware, unhurried. Says: "we co-invest alongside the lead", "ten years and four hundred million, no rush", "this is the part most cap tables don't have", "we're at the table when the science is right", "the mandate page should save you a meeting". Avoids: "empower", "unlock", "elevate", "leverage", "ecosystem", "synergy", "bridge X to Y", "where science meets commercialization", "cutting-edge", "next-generation", "Get started", "Sign up", "Learn more", "Contact us", any tagline shape. Sample sentences:

We've been doing this for ten years. Most of us came from the bench or the clinic, and we co-invest alongside the firms doing the heavy lifting on the science. We're rarely the lead, and that's the point — we come into a round when the syndicate is already strong, and what we add is the part most cap tables don't have: a parent company that can actually make the molecule, run the trial, and sell it in Japan.

3. Color Palette & Roles

Mode: dark Dominant: #0A0A0A (--cinematic-perf-cvc-ink) — page background; not pure black, a hair of warmth so film grain reads Accent: #E31B13 (--cinematic-perf-cvc-flag) — Taiho Red. Single signal accent. Used structurally (one block per fold maximum) — never as decoration, never as a gradient stop, never as a hover-only hint. Surfaces: #14141A (--cinematic-perf-cvc-surface) card backgrounds, #1F1F26 (--cinematic-perf-cvc-muted) muted card, #2A2A32 (--cinematic-perf-cvc-border) hairlines and borders, #F5F2ED (--cinematic-perf-cvc-paper) body type and headlines against dark. Reserved (sparing): #8A532C (--cinematic-perf-cvc-sepia) Taiho Sepia — heritage anchor in the colophon and parent-mark area only. #FABE00 (--cinematic-perf-cvc-amber) Taiho Yellow — secondary data/chart accent, one usage per page maximum. Notes: No gradients. No glows. No soft fades. Color is set in flat blocks. The only legitimate gradient anywhere is the bottom-up dark scrim over hero video so text reads — and that scrim is a media-legibility tool, not a color decision.

4. Typography Rules

Headline font: Bebas Neue — https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Bebas+Neue — weights 400 (only weight available; that's the point — no half-measures). Body font: IBM Plex Sans — https://fonts.google.com/specimen/IBM+Plex+Sans — weights 400, 700. Data/mono font: IBM Plex Mono — https://fonts.google.com/specimen/IBM+Plex+Mono — weights 400, 700. Used for portfolio metrics, fund stats, dates, captions on case-study photography. Pairing principle: Extreme contrast — heavy condensed display against sharp neutral grotesque against precise mono. Three families, three jobs, no overlap. Weight extremes: 400 body vs 700 display-emphasis only. No 500 or 600. Bebas comes in one weight by design. Size scale: H1 6rem (cinematic display), H2 3.5rem, H3 1.75rem, body 1rem, caption 0.875rem. Max font sizes per page: 3. Banned (do not use): Inter, Roboto, Open Sans, Lato, system stacks, Space Grotesk, any serif (display, slab, or text — the gen-2 biotech-VC attractor lives in serifs and this concept commits to no-serif as the rejection move).

5. Layout & Density

Grid: Full-bleed cinematic primary. Hero occupies 100vh under motion video. Body sections alternate between (a) full-bleed media folds and (b) 12-col content folds with content anchored bottom-left or center, never centered-symmetric. Container max-width: 1440px outer; content within tops out at 1100px so reading lines stay disciplined inside the wide cinematic frame. Section rhythm: Dense-then-airy — hero is dense (heavy display + motion video + Taiho Red flag), section two breathes wide with a single statement, portfolio returns to dense (cinematic stills with mono captions), case studies breathe wide again with documentary photography. The rhythm itself is the pacing. Min container padding: 24px (mobile), 80px (desktop). Asymmetry / overlap commitments: Hero copy anchors bottom-left over the video, never centered. Portfolio uses asymmetric editorial grid — one lead case at 2× scale, supporting cases stepped down. Case study pull-quotes hang into the margin to overlap photography. Section labels sit in the left margin as small Taiho-Red mono ticks.

6. Atmosphere & Media

Hero treatment: Full-bleed motion video, with a bottom-up dark scrim (transparent at top → 60% --cinematic-perf-cvc-ink at bottom) so display type reads. The scrim is a legibility tool, not a color decision. Atmospheric layers: 4% film-grain noise across the entire page (every surface, including cards). 1px hairlines in --cinematic-perf-cvc-flag (Taiho Red) under section labels — these are the only place red appears at sub-block scale. Shadow style: Dramatic — 60px-blur, 30%-opacity shadows under photography to lift cinematic stills off the dark surface. No shadows on type, cards, or UI elements. Media stance: video-led Stance reasoning: The cinematic anchor lives or dies on motion. Hero is microscopy / late-stage clinical b-roll / Asia-bridge cityscape footage. Stock biotech imagery (DNA helix renders, gloved hands with pipettes, abstract molecular visualizations) is explicitly out — it's the AI-center of the category. Supporting media is editorial photography: 4:5 portraits for team, 16:9 documentary stills for case studies (Cullinan / Arcus / Orna / Harpoon).

7. Do's and Don'ts

Do:

Lead every page with a single confident statement in Bebas Neue at 6rem+ (cinematic display scale).
Treat Taiho Red as structural — one block per fold maximum, never as decoration or hover-only.
Use motion video as the primary visual surface; photography appears as cinematic stills.
Write copy in first-person plural, plainspoken, like a partner explaining the firm to another partner over coffee.
Surface the 10th-anniversary moment in 2026 as a measured statement of duration ("ten years and four hundred million, no rush"), not a celebration banner.
Run a 4% film-grain layer across all surfaces — it's the warmth that keeps the dark from reading as technological.
Pull mono captions and section labels into the left margin — small, Taiho-Red, IBM Plex Mono.
Make the investment mandate filter (therapeutic area × stage × modality) a structural feature on the homepage, not a hidden page.

Don't:

Use Inter, Roboto, Open Sans, Lato, system stacks, or Space Grotesk.
Use any serif (display, slab, or text) — that's the gen-2 biotech-VC attractor.
Use warm cream / off-white / sepia as the dominant ground (the peer baseline this concept exists to escape).
Use the three-up icon-card feature grid.
Use stock biotech imagery — DNA helix renders, gloved hands holding pipettes, abstract molecular visualizations, blue gradient cells.
Use gradients, glows, or soft fades anywhere except the hero-video legibility scrim.
Write CTAs like "Get started", "Sign up", "Learn more", "Contact us" — use first-person specific phrasing ("Tell us about your seed round", "Read the Cullinan story").
Use a generic mailto link for inbound — outreach is a structured intake (stage / modality / therapeutic area / partnership type).
Hide the investment mandate behind tabs or an accordion — it's the second-most-read element on the homepage after the hero.
Treat the 10th anniversary as a confetti banner or party graphic — it's a measured statement, not a celebration.
Center-align hero copy — anchor bottom-left over video.

8. Agent Prompt Guide

For any agent reading this file:

Read this DESIGN.md in full before writing any code, copy, or styling for cinematic-perf-cvc.
Treat sections 1–7 as canonical truth. Don't override them inline in components or content.
Reject any change that violates the Don'ts in section 7. Surface the conflict to the user rather than silently picking one side.
If the user is asking for something this DESIGN.md doesn't cover, propose an addition to this file rather than introducing the decision in component code.
If the user is asking to change something in this file, route the request to columbus-design-md-builder rather than editing the file inline.
When sections conflict: section 7 (Don'ts) wins over everything; section 1 (Anchor) wins over sections 3–6; section 2 (Voice) is independent.
The audience is sophisticated and time-poor (PhD/MD VC associates and senior partners). Premium energy must read as institutional gravity, not consumer aspiration. If a decision starts feeling Peloton-the-fitness-brand rather than Peloton-the-cinematic-craft, choose institutional gravity.

9. Notes & References

Created: 2026-04-29 Last updated: 2026-04-29 Source URL: n/a (real brand, no existing brand guide beyond the Taiho parent-company communication mark spec — see external references) External references:

Project brief v4: research/TOI2601_TVL Site Brief_v4.docx
Basic Taiho parent-company branding (logo + color spec): research/Taiho-ventures-basic-branding-v0.pdf
Legacy site copy (working content for launch): research/legacy-web-copy/
Bebas Neue specimen: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Bebas+Neue
IBM Plex Sans specimen: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/IBM+Plex+Sans
IBM Plex Mono specimen: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/IBM+Plex+Mono
Canonical case studies to feature (per brief): Cullinan Pearl (build-to-buy), Arcus Biosciences (Asia commercialization bridge), Orna Therapeutics (platform validation), Harpoon Therapeutics (strategic risk-sharing).

Additions log:

2026-04-29: Initial DESIGN.md captured by columbus-design-md-builder. User reached for Peloton-direction explicitly to differentiate from peer baseline (warm-cream biotech-VC default). Voice direction confirmed as "human, personal, not punchy". No upcoming Taiho Oncology U.S. brand guidelines to adhere to — this concept defines its own premium venture-facing identity within the Taiho parent-company color system.

Landing

Open detail →

desktop 1440×900

12-cinematic-perf-cvc/landing

mobile 390×706

9:41

12-cinematic-perf-cvc

Open →