Auwa Lifestyle World
An illustrated world, built into a lifestyle brand
Auwa is a Japanese lifestyle brand built on the philosophy of Kokoro, the concept that unifies what English separates into heart, mind, soul, and spirit. Created by More Air co-founders, Auwa expresses one philosophy through four pillars: a daily awareness app, a curated craftsman store, an editorial journal, and an illustrated story universe. More Air built the world in full, from character and brand to photography, video, illustrated stories, and the website that holds them all.
An identity designed to recede with grace
The Auwa wordmark is set in all caps, wide-tracked. There is no symbol. The natural symmetry of A-U-W-A mirrors the brand's own etymology: あ (heavens) and わ (earth) framing う (connection). The palette is built around warm Japanese darks and lights with names like sumi, yoru, and washi, carrying the feel of a quiet temple room at dusk. Type, palette, and pacing are designed to recede, so the photography, illustration, and writing carry the brand.
A four-pillar website built to grow with the brand
The Auwa website hosts the brand and its four pillars on a single domain: the awareness app, the store, the journal, and the book universe. We designed and built it end to end in Next.js with Sanity for content and Vercel for hosting. The structure is editorial, the rhythm is unhurried, and the framework is built to scale as each pillar matures, from teaser to launch to fully populated marketplace and magazine.
An illustrated story universe in four books
The story universe is the canonical source of the Auwa world: where the character lives, where the philosophy is taught, and where the deeper mythology is held for those who want to go further in. We designed four book covers that share a typographic and atmospheric system while letting each story breathe in its own palette and mood. The covers function as printed editions, app entry points, and brand artefacts in their own right.
Dark mode reading, built to match the stories
The book section of the site uses a dark mode treatment that mirrors how the stories are meant to be read: slowly, in low light, with the chrome falling away. EB Garamond holds the page at every size, the illustrations sit in their own atmospheric space, and the design recedes so the writing and the world come forward. The same dark treatment carries through to the Kokoro Mirror app, where dark space is the canvas the character emerges into.
Meticulous craft beneath every frame
The Auwa character has been years in the making, refined across sketchbooks, Procreate iPad sessions, and field studies in Japan. The final form is a luminous being who reveals the Kokoro in everything through a magical light shower. The illustration system lives across the book, the app's revelation moments, and seasonal social content, with Rieko leading creative direction throughout.
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