DESIGN.md — Taiho Ventures (Sumi · Washi)

Per-style brand authority for src/styles/41-sumi-washi-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 — Japanese-heritage editorial (Mincho display) set on a washi-cream ground, pigment treated as paint rather than flat fill. Secondary remix: Sumi-e brushwork — a real ink plate (ochre sun-disc + vermillion stroke + black brushstroke) floats off-axis in the hero, and a brushstroke divides sections. The heritage lives in the gesture, never in kanji. Reference brands: Taiho Pharmaceutical (the parent's heritage + flame mark) × Flagship Pioneering / a16z bio (institutional biotech-VC restraint) × a fine-press monograph (warm paper, generous measure). Visual atmosphere: Quiet, warm, and unhurried — washi cream with a faint paper grain, a left-anchored Mincho headline beside the floating sumi-e plate, then long generous sections of light-weight Spectral prose. Teal is the single saturated voice and it speaks rarely (one primary button per view, hanging numbers, link underlines). This is the warm "Home v1" direction — distinct from the cooled Ocean line (40-sumi-ocean-cvc) by its washi ground, Spectral serif body, teal accent, and the always-on paper grain.

2. Brand Voice

Copy is locked / verbatim from the client copy deck — this style applies design to fixed copy, it does not author new copy. The fields below describe the deck's register so future component-level microcopy stays in key.

Adjectives: institutional, precise, understated, mission-led, unhurried. Voice anchor: Orwell — the plain craftsman voice. Concrete nouns, no salesmanship, claims backed by named outcomes (Arcus, Merck, J&J). Voice sample:

"Our mission is to create significant value by investing in the global biotech venture community and to bring innovative science to Taiho Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd."

Says: "Patient, long-term capital." · "A strategic partner, not just a check." · "We back companies whose science is strategically relevant to Taiho." Avoids: "ecosystem", "premier", "world-class", "disruptive", growth-stage hype, exclamation, response-time promises the firm can't keep. Sample sentences:

"Since 2016 we have invested in more than 30 early-stage private companies strategically relevant to Taiho Pharmaceutical." "Our portfolio has produced public listings and acquisitions by Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Sanofi, and Merck."

3. Color Palette & Roles

Mode: Light (the contact band + footer are the one sanctioned dark surface — a single continuous ink block). Dominant: #F8F4ED (--sw-paper) — washi-cream page ground; also the light type laid on the dark ink band. Accent: #0C7C7C (--sw-accent, teal) — primary buttons, links, hanging numbers, form focus. Sharp punctuation, never a surface wash. Surfaces: #F1E9D8 (--sw-paper-deep, deeper washi — alt section) · #E8DFD0 (--sw-wash, watercolor wash — the one featured bed) · #C9BFA5 (--sw-rule, paper-grain hairline) Ink: #1A1410 (--sw-ink, warm near-black — body + dark sections) · #3C302A (--sw-ink-soft, secondary body) · #845339 (--sw-sepia, Taiho Sepia — eyebrows / marginalia / acquirer tags) · #A87A5E (--sw-sepia-soft, labels on dark) Rare accents: #FDB913 (--sw-ochre, Taiho Yellow) — footer column headings and the sun-disc in the plate; the single yellow. Notes: No gradients. No drop shadows — depth is pigment layering + the paper grain. Color lands on type and the brushwork, not on decorative fills.

4. Typography Rules

Headline font: Shippori Mincho B1 — https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Shippori+Mincho+B1:wght@400;700 — weights 400 (subheads / light statements), 700 (display headlines). Body font: Spectral — https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Spectral:ital,wght@0,300;0,400;0,500;1,400 — weights 300 (long-form body, ledes), 400 (UI), 500 (eyebrows / buttons), italic 400 (marginalia, acquirer tags). Pairing principle: Two serifs in concert — a humanist Mincho for display against the contemporary Spectral for body. Mincho carries voice; Spectral carries the long read. Weight extremes: Display is 700 Mincho; body leans light (300). Avoid the 500/600 SaaS-bold middle in body copy — eyebrows and buttons are the only 500s. Size scale: H1 3.4rem · H2 2.5rem · lead-statement 1.75rem (light Mincho) · H3 1.4rem · body 1.0625rem · eyebrow 0.75rem. Max font sizes per page: 3 families of size (display / statement / body) — hold the line. Banned (do not use): Inter, Roboto, Open Sans, Lato, system stacks, Space Grotesk. No Japanese glyphs as decorative texture — Latin-glyph Mincho only (the brushstroke carries the heritage, not kanji).

5. Layout & Density

Grid: Asymmetric editorial. Hero ~60/40 (Mincho headline / floating sumi-e plate). Body sections use a 12-col shell with content ranged into 3/8 splits (eyebrow gutter + prose) and 2×2 hairline grids. Container max-width: 1280px. Section rhythm: Generous and even — 92px vertical section padding, airy. One featured wash section (Outcomes) breaks the cream; a real brushstroke plate divides "Who we are" from "What we bring". Dark contact band + footer close as a single ink block. Min container padding: 24px (mobile), 80px (desktop). Asymmetry / overlap commitments: Eyebrows hang in a left gutter; "What we bring" is a 4-item 2×2 with hanging teal numbers and hairline rules; the hero plate floats off-axis upper-right, multiply-blended so its cream merges with the page; the section-break brushstroke runs slightly over-width.

6. Atmosphere & Media

Hero treatment: Washi cream with the always-on paper grain; the floating sumi-e plate + Mincho type are the whole composition. Atmospheric layers: A fixed full-page paper-grain overlay (SVG turbulence, ~6% opacity, multiply blend) gives the cream a real washi surface. This is the brand's defining texture — kept here (removed in the cooled Ocean line). Shadow style: None — flat pigment, hairlines, and grain only. Media stance: brand-illustration — the sumi-e plates (plate-01 hero, plate-02 section break) are the only imagery; both multiply-blend onto the washi. No photography in this direction. Stance reasoning: The painted ink mark is the heritage signal and ties the page to the parent's brush idiom without resorting to kanji or stock photography.

7. Do's and Don'ts

Do:

Keep the ground warm washi cream with the paper grain on; let teal be the only saturated voice, used sparingly.
Set display in Shippori Mincho (700 for headlines, 400 for light statements); set body in Spectral light (300).
Float the sumi-e plate off-axis in the hero and multiply-blend it; divide "Who we are" / "What we bring" with the brushstroke plate.
Use eyebrows + acquirer tags in Taiho sepia; hang teal numbers on the "What we bring" grid; head footer columns in ochre.
Close the page as one continuous dark ink block: contact band → DS "Footer · A".
Keep all deck copy verbatim; let outcomes name their acquirers (Merck, J&J, Eli Lilly, Sanofi).

Don't:

Use Inter, Roboto, Open Sans, Lato, system stacks, or Space Grotesk.
Cool the ground to white or drop the paper grain — that is the Ocean line (40-sumi-ocean-cvc), a deliberately separate style.
Use gradients, drop shadows, or color as a decorative surface fill (the wash bed excepted).
Use Japanese glyphs as decoration; the brushstroke carries the heritage.
Render the hero plate as a hard-edged rectangle or on a non-multiply ground — the cream must merge.
Write CTAs like "Get started" / "Sign up" / "Learn more" generically — keep the deck's own labels ("Investment Focus", "Get in Touch").

8. Agent Prompt Guide

For any agent reading this file:

Read this DESIGN.md in full before writing any code, copy, or styling for 41-sumi-washi-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.
Copy is locked/verbatim from the deck — do not rewrite headlines or body copy; only structure/style it.
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.

9. Notes & References

Created: 2026-06-02 Last updated: 2026-06-02 Source URL: Claude Design handoff bundle tvl-legacy-revamp-v1 (Home.html — the warm "v1" direction, the file open at handoff); parent: http://www.taiho.co.jp/en/ External references:

Bundle Home.html + assets/colors_and_type.css + assets/site.css — the canonical tokens (washi cream + teal/sepia/ochre, Mincho + Spectral) and the section structure.
Sibling style 40-sumi-ocean-cvc — the cooled "Home v2" Ocean direction from the same bundle. This style is the warm counterpart; keep them distinct.
Brand assets: public/brand/taiho-logomark.svg; plates public/41-sumi-washi-cvc/plate-01.png (hero sumi-e), plate-02.png (brushstroke break).

Additions log:

2026-06-02: Initial DESIGN.md captured from the tvl-legacy-revamp-v1 bundle (warm "Home v1" direction), sibling to 40-sumi-ocean-cvc.

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