DESIGN.md — Taiho Ventures (sumi-brushwork-cvc)

Per-style brand authority for src/styles/22-sumi-brushwork-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: Warm Editorial — paper-and-serif, classical-publication restraint, the long-read register. Secondary remix: Sumi-e brushwork × Japanese editorial heritage — washi paper, ink-painted marks, ma as structural device. The remix is what makes this style not a sibling of 02-sepia-paper-editorial; brushwork is the active visual mechanic, not flavoring. Reference brands: 5AM Ventures (clinical-editorial type discipline, baseline biotech-VC literacy) × Issey Miyake (editorial Japanese restraint, asymmetric composition) × Toraya (warm-paper + sumi brushwork applied commercially, the 500-year confectionery house's modernized identity system). Visual atmosphere: The page reads like a quarterly journal printed on washi — warm cream paper, sumi-ink type, the three Taiho pigments (Sepia, Vermillion, Yellow) showing up as actual painted marks: brushstrokes, watercolor washes, ink-bleed edges. Atmosphere is painted, not decorated. Where another warm-editorial concept would be quiet and typographic, this one is composed — every hero, every section break, every key heading carries one deliberate brushwork artifact, off-axis, as if a calligrapher worked the page.

2. Brand Voice

Adjectives: observational, counterintuitive, scene-led, considered, accessible.

Voice anchor: Malcolm Gladwell — the editorial voice (full fingerprint in anti-slop-copy/references/voices.md). Anecdote-then-thesis where the page has room (About, Case Studies, Mandate explainer, Insights, the 10th-anniversary moment). Tight observational sentences where it doesn't (hero, CTAs, nav labels, captions). The signature is the move, not the form-factor of every block.

Voice sample (real Gladwell anchor, David and Goliath):

"Giants are not what we think they are. The same qualities that appear to give them strength are often the sources of great weakness."

Says:

"What Taiho adds is the cap-table credibility of a global pharmaceutical company."
"The harder thing in early-stage oncology is not capital. It is the partner who can take an asset across the Pacific."
"Most rounds close on a term sheet. A few close on a thesis about who the founder wants on the cap table ten years from now."

Avoids:

"premier" / "premier pharma-backed" — the brief's framing, not the brand's voice. Reads as self-coronation. Replace with substance ($400M, ten years, named syndicate partners, named portfolio companies).
"ecosystem" / "biotech ecosystem" — generic VC vocabulary. This brand earns the right to be specific (oncology, immunology, urology, Series A/B, syndicate, cap table).
"innovative therapeutic landscape" / "cutting-edge science" — SaaS-register jargon that fights the literary visual.

Sample sentences (drafted in voice, run through the critique pass):

About lede. In 2016, a four-person team in Menlo Park began deploying capital from Taiho Pharmaceutical's first venture fund. The syndicates they joined were already crowded — seed and Series A rounds for early-stage oncology assets routinely included ARCH, GV, MPM. What Taiho added was something the founders had not been asking for, and the lead VCs had not been able to offer: the credibility of a $400M Japanese specialty pharmaceutical company on the cap table. Ten years later, that has turned out to be harder to find than money.

Hero. Early-stage oncology investing is a syndicated business. The lead VC writes the term sheet; the syndicate adds the rest. What Taiho Ventures adds is the cap-table credibility of a $400M Japanese specialty pharmaceutical company — and a path from preclinical asset to global commercialization.

3. Color Palette & Roles

Mode: light (warm-paper, single mode — no dark variant) Dominant: #1A1410 (--sumi-ink) — body type, primary headings. Warm near-black, reads as sumi, not pure digital black. Accent: #EF4123 (--sumi-vermillion) — Taiho Red. Sharp pigment punctuation: brushwork accents, hanko-style seal marks, pull-quote bars, link underlines. Used as paint, not as flat UI fill. Surfaces:

#F8F4ED (--sumi-paper) — page background, washi cream
#E8DFD0 (--sumi-wash) — atmospheric watercolor wash bg behind featured sections (always feels like a brush wiped on paper, never a flat block)
#C9BFA5 (--sumi-rule) — paper-grain hairlines and faint borders (used sparingly; brushstrokes do most of the dividing)

Secondary pigments (used as paint, not fills):

#845339 (--sumi-sepia) — Taiho Sepia. Marginalia type, secondary heads, brushwork strokes, the logomark's brown.
#FDB913 (--sumi-ochre) — Taiho Yellow. Reserved for atmospheric sun-disc washes, signature brushwork moments, the 10th-anniversary panel. Rare on purpose.

Notes: No CSS gradients. The only gradients on the page are inside painted artifacts — a brushstroke fades because the brush ran out of ink, not because of a CSS interpolation. Color is applied as PAINT (brushstrokes, watercolor washes, ink-bleed image edges) wherever possible, not as flat hexes. When a flat fill is unavoidable (form fields, table cells), keep it neutral (--sumi-paper or --sumi-wash) and let the surrounding brushwork carry the brand signal.

4. Typography Rules

Headline font: Shippori Mincho B1 — https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Shippori+Mincho+B1 — weights 400, 700. A modern Mincho (明朝) typeface; supports Latin and reads as Japanese editorial restraint without exoticism. Body font: Spectral — https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Spectral — weights 300, 400, 500. Designed for long-form reading; pairs as Western editorial serif against the Mincho display. Pairing principle: Same considered-serif register, two cultural lineages. The pairing IS the brand's bicultural DNA — Japanese pharmaceutical heritage meets Menlo Park venture fluency. Both serifs, no sans. Weight extremes: 300 (light body for long-form) vs 700 (display headlines only). No 500 SaaS-bold. No 600. Size scale:

H1 (display): 4.5rem
H2 (section): 2.5rem
H3 (subhead): 1.5rem
Body: 1.0625rem (17px — slightly larger than typical for editorial readability)
Caption / marginalia: 0.875rem
Pull quote: 1.875rem (italic Spectral)

Max font sizes per page: 3.

Banned (do not use): Inter, Roboto, Open Sans, Lato, Helvetica, Arial, system stacks, Space Grotesk, Poppins, Montserrat, Playfair Display, Times New Roman, Georgia, Merriweather, EB Garamond, Cormorant Garamond. The first cluster reads SaaS; the second cluster reads "every editorial blog template."

5. Layout & Density

Grid: 12-column editorial with intentional asymmetry. Long-form prose lives in cols 2–9 (left-anchored, eight columns wide). Marginalia — citations, dates, sub-thesis, hanko seals — hang in cols 10–12 (right gutter). Brushwork artifacts may overshoot the column grid intentionally, the way a calligrapher's stroke leaves the page. Container max-width: 1280px (the column shell). Body prose has an inner reading width of ~680px to keep line lengths editorially tight (~70 characters). Section rhythm: varied — dense long-form sections (About, Case Studies, Mandate explainer) breathe against painted ma sections (single brushstroke, single line of type, vast white). The page should feel composed, not gridded. Min container padding: 24px (mobile), 80px (desktop). Asymmetry / overlap commitments:

Hero composition is off-axis — type left-anchored, painted brushwork floating to the upper-right (or vice versa). Never centered, never balanced.
Section heads can hang in the left margin (as drop-style display caps or as a hanging vermillion brushstroke).
Sumi-e brushstroke section breaks may extend ~40px past the column edge into the gutter.
Pull quotes hang into the right gutter with a vermillion vertical bar inspired by the classical Japanese book seal (the kakko).
The Taiho ellipse logomark may appear at hero scale as a watermark/wash element, but never centered — always off-axis, always large enough to read as art object.

6. Atmosphere & Media

Hero treatment: Solid washi paper (--sumi-paper #F8F4ED) with a single hand-painted brushwork composition floating off-axis. The brushwork composition is the atmosphere. Often pairs the three Taiho pigments — a sepia ink stroke, a vermillion brushmark, a yellow watercolor disc — composed so it reads as sumi-e, not as a logo treatment. Atmospheric layers:

Subtle paper-grain noise (4–6% opacity) across the full page so white reads as washi, not pixel.
Watercolor wash blocks behind featured sections (sepia or vermillion @ 8–15% opacity, with irregular hand-painted edges, not rectangular fills).
Ink-bleed image masks — image edges are torn / brushed, never crisp rectangles.
Sumi-e brushstroke section breaks replace 1px hairlines on key transitions. Hairlines (--sumi-rule) survive only for utilitarian dividers (table rows, footer).
Hanko-style vermillion seal marks at signature moments — the 10th-anniversary panel, founder pull-quotes, signed positions ("— Tim Wakeling, Managing Partner"). Shadow style: None. No box-shadow, no elevation, no digital depth. Depth comes from pigment layering and paper texture. Shadows would fight the printed/painted register. Media stance: mixed-media. Stance reasoning: Type-only would strip the brushwork mechanic that defines the brand. The mix:
Editorial photography — team and portfolio company photography, treated with a duotone (sepia + ink) and ink-bleed edges. Real founders and team, never stock.
Decorative abstracts — real sumi-e brushstrokes, watercolor washes, hanko seals. Hand-rendered (or hand-rendered-feeling) artifacts, never algorithmic shapes.
Logo grids — portfolio company marks ranged-left in a sparse editorial grid, with co-investor names in caption type. No logo wall.
No product-UI (this is a fund, not a SaaS). No 3D illustration. No iconography sets.

7. Do's and Don'ts

Do:

Use sumi-e brushstrokes as the section-break primitive — not 1px rules, not gradients.
Use the three Taiho pigments (Sepia #845339, Vermillion #EF4123, Yellow #FDB913) as paint — brushstrokes, watercolor washes, ink-bleed edges. Never as flat UI fills.
Pair Shippori Mincho display × Spectral body — both serifs, different cultural lineages. The pairing is the brand's bicultural DNA, made legible.
Compose every hero and key section with deliberate asymmetry. Let ma (negative space) do structural work. Centered is forbidden as a default.
Write copy following Gladwell's anecdote-then-thesis where the page has room (About, Case Studies, Mandate, Insights, anniversary moment). Keep hero / CTA / nav labels tight.
Use a vermillion hanko-style seal accent at signature moments (10th anniversary, founder pull-quotes, signed positions, mandate confirmation).
Treat image edges as ink-bleed or torn paper, never crisp rectangles.
Use named substance over abstract claims: "$400M, ten years, twenty-three positions" beats "premier pharma-backed CVC."

Don't:

Default to cream-and-serif ornamental Warm Editorial. That's sibling territory (02-sepia-paper-editorial) and would homogenize. The brushwork mechanic is non-negotiable; if a screen could render in 02's style, it's wrong.
Use Inter, Roboto, Open Sans, Lato, Helvetica, system stacks, Space Grotesk, Poppins, Playfair Display, Times New Roman, Georgia, Merriweather, EB Garamond, or Cormorant Garamond.
Use the three-up icon-card feature grid. The mandate clarifies through prose and brushwork composition, not feature cards.
Use box drop shadows, soft elevations, or any digital depth treatment. Pigment layering and paper texture carry depth.
Use CSS gradients. Pigment fades because a brush ran out, not because of an interpolation.
Use exotic Japanese ornamentation — cherry blossoms, koi fish, samurai motifs, kanji as decoration, calligraphy of Japanese characters that aren't in the brand. The Japanese DNA shows up in restraint, ma, brushwork, and the Mincho typeface — not in costume.
Use hamburger nav on mobile. Use a vertical Mincho "目次" (mokuji / index) text-link instead, paired with a vermillion brushstroke marker.
Write CTAs as "Get started" / "Learn more" / "Sign up". Use first-person voiced CTAs ("Read the case studies", "Begin an outreach", "See the syndicate", "Read the mandate").
Use the brief's "premier pharma-backed CVC partner" framing in body copy. It's positioning shorthand, not a sentence the brand says aloud.

8. Agent Prompt Guide

For any agent reading this file:

Read this DESIGN.md in full before writing any code, copy, or styling for 22-sumi-brushwork-cvc.
Treat sections 1–7 as canonical truth. Don't override them inline.
Reject any change that violates the Don'ts in section 7. Surface the conflict to the user rather than silently picking one side. The most likely silent failure for this style is defaulting to Warm Editorial without the brushwork mechanic — if a section reads as it would in 02-sepia-paper-editorial, the brushwork mandate has been silently dropped. Reject that.
The voice (section 2) is Gladwell-ration'd-for-website. Apply the anecdote-then-thesis move where the page has room (About, Case Studies, Mandate, Insights, anniversary). Tight observational prose elsewhere. Don't write magazine essays into hero / CTA / labels.
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 inline.
When sections conflict: section 7 (Don'ts) wins over everything; section 1 (Anchor) wins over sections 3–6; section 2 (Voice) is independent.

9. Notes & References

Created: 2026-05-01 Last updated: 2026-05-14 Source URL: https://www.taihoventures.com/ (legacy site — referenced for content scope, not aesthetic) External references:

Brand mark + colors: /workspace/research/Taiho-ventures-basic-branding-v0.pdf (Taiho Sepia DIC 345 / RGB 138-83-44, Taiho Red DIC 198 / RGB 227-27-19, Taiho Yellow DIC 165 / RGB 250-190-0)
Site brief v4: /workspace/research/TOI2601_TVL Site Brief_v4.docx (audiences, mandate, 10th-anniversary moment, primary CTAs)
Legacy copy archive: /workspace/research/legacy-web-copy/ (working content for launch — register to be upgraded, not preserved)
Logomark SVG: /workspace/public/brand/taiho-logomark.svg
Shippori Mincho B1 specimen: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Shippori+Mincho+B1
Spectral specimen: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Spectral
Voice fingerprint (Gladwell): .claude/skills/anti-slop-copy/references/voices.md §1

Additions log:

2026-05-01: Initial DESIGN.md captured by columbus-design-md-builder. Voice picked via anti-slop-copy (Gladwell, ration'd for website use).
2026-05-14: Bicultural framing tightened. Tokyo references that read as a second TVL office removed: §4 pairing principle reframed as "Japanese pharmaceutical heritage" (the parent, not a TVL office); §7 substance-anchor example replaced with "twenty-three positions." TVL operates from Menlo Park only; the Japanese heritage is the parent's.