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.
An unhurried stroll. Walking for the pleasure of it, rather than to get somewhere.
Spelling and lock-up
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.
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.
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.
Golden Circle
We start from the why. The product (the podwalks) follows from that drive; it is not the starting point.
Audience
GEO stands for generative engine optimisation: being found through AI search and assistants, alongside classic SEO.
Four segments
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.
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, open to fiction as well as non-fiction.
20–35, highly educated, humanities background
Instagram, SEO, GEO, forums
Position
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.
The product
At the heart of the brand is an app with podwalks: 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, not the exception.
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.
Demo walk · Nou Barris · 1.8 km · 5 stops. Every stop can also be played by hand, for the times the fix is late or the phone is asleep.
Values
When two values collide, zen wins. A creative idea that costs the walker their calm is not a Sanpo idea.
Look & feel
Plenty of white space and few elements per screen.
A calm palette, for example natural, muted tones.
Simple, readable typography without busy decoration.
Photography of places and atmosphere rather than stock images of people.
Tone of voice
Calm and narrative. Personal: we address the listener directly as “you”. Honest and free of exaggeration; the story can speak for itself.
App — home
The home screen does one job: get you to the start of a walk that will work without a signal.
Spec
One walk, already downloaded.
Route, stops, distance.
Story and place together.
“Play next stop manually” is a first-class button. It is the iOS survival path.
Website
Design system
Orange never covers more than one numeral per slide.
Archivo 400–800. Roboto Mono for annotations. Tabular figures everywhere.
The 12-column grid is visible on at least half the slides.
Rules over cards. No fills, no shadows, no radius.
One orange numeral per slide. Green for structure.
Slide numbers live in the left margin as large numerals.
Open questions
Colophon
Every mockup in this deck is a layout study. No logo has been designed yet; the wordmark is set in type throughout.
Swiss slow. Calm through system: 12 columns, visible hairlines, Archivo only.