Version 1.1 · 23 October 2026
Step into the story.
The name
Sanpo is Japanese for an unhurried stroll: walking for the pleasure of it rather than to get somewhere.
The name carries the zen feel of the brand and puts the walk at its centre. It is a word you can say on a street corner without raising your voice.
A stroll. From 散 to scatter and 歩 to walk: walking without a destination, which is the whole product.
Rules of the name
Never “SANPO”, never “San Po”, never a camel case compromise. The word is quiet; setting it in capitals makes it shout.
No logo exists yet. Until the wordmark is drawn, the lock-up is set in type: name, full stop, slogan. Never a symbol, never an icon.
The full stop is part of the mark. It ends the name, which is also what a walk does.
Mission
We create walks in which the story comes first. The route exists to tell the story, and you experience the story by walking the route.
Not a theme applied to a route. The reason the route exists.
The instrument. It shapes what you hear and when you hear it.
The way you read it. The body learns the story.
Vision
Stories don’t belong only in books, museums or on signs. We want people to experience them where they happened, at their own pace, with their phone as their guide.
Promise
Every walk tells a real story you won’t hear told this way anywhere else.
Stories are grounded in real places, people and events.
No generic tourist information, but a told story with character.
Every route is unique to the place where you walk.
If a sentence could be printed on a sign at the same spot, it is not a story yet. Rewrite it until it could only be heard while standing there.
The order
“How” and “what” are read off the brand book rather than quoted from it. Marked where they are.
The digital native generation, split four ways
These are working hypotheses from the whiteboard session, not validated research. Each one still needs to be tested and sized; together they form the basis for the four personas.
What they share. Highly educated, roughly 20 to 50 years old, looking for quality and originality rather than mainstream tourist content.
GEO stands for generative engine optimisation: being found through AI search and assistants, alongside classic SEO.
Travels to take a place in rather than to tick it off. Avoids the standard tourist circuit and wants content about a destination that they couldn’t have found in a guidebook.
30–40, highly educated, above-average income
Instagram, travel blogs / Substack, GEO, short video, forums
Already listens to audio stories every day and judges them on production quality. For this segment the bar is the story and the sound.
25–50, highly educated
Podcasts, SEO/GEO, short video, forums
Has moved to a new city and wants to understand where they now live, beyond the practical. Learns by doing and experiencing, and shares that within the expat community.
28–40, high income, part of an expat community
Instagram, TikTok
The youngest segment, with a background in the humanities. Hungry for new and original stories and open to fiction as well as non-fiction.
20–35, highly educated, humanities background
Instagram, SEO, GEO, forums
Position
Not three features. Three positions that a competitor would have to give up something to copy.
The competition sells access. We give the walk away and ask for a coffee afterwards.
Anyone can walk any route, with no paywall or account. Those who want to can support us with a voluntary contribution (“Buy me a coffee”).
A good digital experience is not an afterthought: the app runs smoothly, feels intuitive and stays out of the way while you walk.
The stories are crafted with care, told in an original way and true to the facts.
How it works
Walking routes with audio stories that start automatically based on your GPS location.
One route, one story. No account, no paywall.
Tours and audio are fetched before you leave. Outside coverage is the normal case.
You don’t need to look at your screen; the story guides you.
Story and surroundings come together: you hear about a place while standing in it.
Every stop can also be played by hand, for the times the fix is late or the phone is asleep.
Values
From story to interface. Each one has a failure mode named next to it.
We tell stories in a surprising, distinctive way.
Original angles, atmospheric storytelling
A dry list of dates
What we tell is real and accurate.
Real sources, local voices, an honest tone
Invented sensation, marketing speak
The experience offers calm and space.
Your own pace, little screen time, calm design
Push notifications, busy screens, hurry
The first visual direction, to be developed
This direction reads it as: a survey. The brand keeps a record of places, in ink, on paper, with the source written underneath.
Consequences: warm ground, hairline rules, mono captions, duotone place photography, and no interface chrome that isn’t earning its place.
Calm and narrative, like a guide walking beside you
Personal: we address the listener directly as “you”. Honest and free of exaggeration; the story can speak for itself.
Mockup · not a screenshot
The home screen does one job: get you to the start of a walk that will work without a signal.
Decisions
The route plate uses the deck’s own street drawing, so the app and the brand book are visibly the same system.
Same bones: bone ground, hairline rules, mono captions, one photograph doing the persuading.
Colour
Rust never covers more than a numeral, a rule or a state. Moss is the only colour you can press.
Type
Rules
Margins are 88 px and they are not negotiable. Content starts on the same line on every slide.
A rule beats a card. A hairline beats a shadow. There is no drop shadow anywhere in the system.
Photographs are duotoned to moss-on-ink and always carry a cutline naming the place.
Motion is one cross-fade of 320–500 ms. Nothing slides, nothing bounces, nothing scales on hover.
Still open
Nine questions from the brand book. The first one is the only one this deck deliberately leaves untouched.
Five directions, no logo. The wordmark stays set in type until it is drawn properly.
Sources
Every mockup in this deck is a layout study. No logo has been designed yet; the wordmark is set in type throughout.
Paper and ink survey. Warm bone, moss duotone, hairline rules, specimen captions.