the idea

The page stays silent.
The work does the talking.

Edition 0.9 put the brand into the interface: frosted panes, silver edges, large headlines. The studios in your reference set do the opposite. Their interface is almost not there. All the material, colour and attitude is in the work.

Direction 1.1 is the mix of the two. The page stays silent, as in the reference set. The glass of edition 0.9 comes back, but only as a signature: in the header, in the mark and in one plate on a page.

kontakt is a reference for the mood only. kontakt makes fashion pictures. Culture Blender does branding and brand marketing. Thus this page must show words, systems and thinking, and not only photographs.

This page uses the rules that it describes. If a rule looks wrong here, the rule is wrong. To see how this direction was chosen, open the three candidates.

what the references do

kontakt, tokyo and paris
A reference for the mood only. One typeface (Suisse Int'l) at one size, 12.8 px. A white page. The header is the name and two addresses. The menu is one plus sign. Images have different sizes and sit on one top line. Each project gives title, client, role, assets and year, then names each person on the shoot. The project text is a short first-person story about a place. It is not a case study.
our legacy
Photographers found in the credits: Ian Kenneth Bird (FW24, SS25), Thomas Hauser (Fall 22). My reading: daylight, plain rooms, people who do not perform, colour that looks washed.
stüssy
Tyrone Lebon (2015 to 2022), Antosh Cimoszko (2025, 2026). My reading: friends and places before product, snapshots, sun, a loose frame.
miu miu
Zoë Ghertner (Spring 24), Tyrone Lebon (FW22). Credits for 2026 are not confirmed. My reading: portraits in real rooms, an awkward moment kept on purpose.
the common rule
The picture looks found, and the layout looks unforced. Taste shows in what is left out.
what is different for us
Our work is a brand: a position, a name, a voice, a system and a campaign. A picture is one part of it. We keep the calm of the references. We add three things that they do not need: a large line, system plates and a short record of the thinking.

nine rules

  1. One typeface. One text size. One statement size, used one time on a page.
  2. White paper, black ink, one grey. All other colour comes from the work: photographs, identities and objects.
  3. No interface material. No shadow, gradient, rounded corner or card.
  4. Glass is the one exception. It appears in three places only: the header, the mark and one plate on a page.
  5. Plates use two ratios only: 4:5 upright and 3:2 wide. A plate is a photograph or a system plate. Sizes change. Ratios do not.
  6. Empty space is part of the layout. Do not fill it.
  7. All facts use the credit sheet: a grey label, then the value.
  8. Name each person who made the work. Credits are part of the brand.
  9. Each project gives the question, the idea and what we made. Three lines, not a long case study.

glass

Glass is the signature of the studio. It is not the wallpaper. It appears in three places, and the header of this page is one of them. Scroll, and a picture goes behind it.

culture blender

the markthe form as a ring, next to the name

A little strange.
Very intentional.

one platea line on a frost pane
the header
A sheet of clear frost: white at 72 percent, with a blur of 22 px. It shows no colour on white paper. It takes colour when a picture goes behind it.
the mark
The form as a ring, turned 24 degrees. A pool blue body, a lilac inner line and a silver outer line. It goes next to the name, in the footer, in the browser tab and on a profile picture.
one plate
A frost pane on a picture, with one line of text. One on a page at most.
the cut
Square corners. No shadow. No tint in the glass. A hairline edge in white or silver.
not glass
Buttons, cards, menus, text panels and backgrounds.
the limit
If glass appears in a fourth place, the page starts to become edition 0.9 again.

type

Text, labels, captions, navigation and credits all use 13 px with 1.3 line height and a small positive tracking. Bold is for the name of the studio only. Sentences use sentence case. The name, labels and captions use lowercase.

The statement size is 28 to 56 px, related to the width of the screen. A brand studio leads with its line, so the statement is large. The two lines at the top of this page use it. No other line on this page does.

Type in a system plate belongs to the work. It can have its own size.

working stack
Neue Haas Grotesk, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial
to decide
A licensed neo-grotesque for all devices. Suisse Int'l and Neue Haas Grotesk are the candidates.
retired
Space Grotesk and IBM Plex Mono. Uppercase mono labels read as technology, not as fashion.

colour

paper
#ffffff
ink
#0b0b0b
grey, labels
#9b9a97
ice, empty plate
#eaf2f2

Pool blue, petrol, lilac and silver stay in the brand as material colours. They appear in objects, clothes, light, print and the mark. They do not appear as page colours. The glass has no colour of its own.

plates

A plate is a unit of work on the page. There are two kinds. A photograph shows an object, a place or a person. A system plate shows brand work that is not a picture: a name, a line, a colour set, a layout. The page draws a system plate in code, so it stays sharp and it costs no shoot.

Photographs are still the largest gap. The two form studies are generated renders. They are clean, but they have the look of a 3D studio. They do not have the look of a campaign. System plates carry the page for now. The next real work is a camera, the printed objects and a day in New York.

make

  • Daylight from a window, or direct flash. One source.
  • Real places: a table, a stairwell, a street, a car seat.
  • The object in use: on a hand, in a pocket, next to coffee.
  • People between moments. They do not look at the lens each time.
  • Film, or a digital file that keeps its grain and its flaws.
  • A frame that is a little off.

do not make

  • Renders with a perfect gradient ground.
  • Generated people or generated places shown as photographs.
  • Stock images.
  • Text, logos or stickers on top of an image.
  • Heavy retouching or a colour filter.
  • Mock-ups on fake billboards and fake phones.
first shot list
06, the form on a hand, window light, 4:5
07, the studio table at the end of a day, direct flash, 4:5
08, New York, early, nobody posed, 4:5
09, a print that has just come off the 3D printer, close, 3:2
10, Hanwen and Xing at work, not a portrait, 3:2

project page

Each project has one page, and each page has the same seven parts in the same order. Project 00 is the model. To make a new project, copy that file and replace the text and the plates.

  1. The idea in one line. This is the statement of the page.
  2. The facts as a credit sheet: project, client, scope, year, status, place.
  3. The lead plate. One picture that holds the idea.
  4. The thinking in three notes: the question, the idea, what we made. One or two sentences for each note.
  5. The plates. Photographs and system plates on 12 columns, in an uneven sequence. One frost plate at most.
  6. The credits. Name each person by role.
  7. The next project, or the way back to the work.
client work
The page stays white. The colour, the type and the mark in the plates are those of the client.
numbers
A result with a number goes in the third note, in one sentence. No charts.
length
Six to twelve plates. If a project needs more, it is two projects.

social

format
4:5 for each post. No carousels of slides with text.
rhythm
object, place, person, system plate. Do not put two of one kind together.
text post
One in nine at most: the name or one line. Black type on white.
caption
One line in lowercase. Then credits. No hashtags, no emoji.
stories
Process and references. Raw phone pictures are correct here.
glass
One frost pane in nine posts at most. The pane is a part of the picture.
profile
The ring mark on white. The name in lowercase.

voice

The voice stays clear, curious and lightly mischievous. The volume goes down. One dry line is sufficient for a page. Write a project as three short parts: the question, the idea and what we made. Each part is one or two sentences. A long case study with a challenge and a solution is not necessary.

open decisions

  1. The review by Xing. Hanwen chose the mix on 14 November 2026, after the comparison of three candidates.
  2. The mark. The ring is a working drawing. Decide if it becomes the logo, and who draws the final form.
  3. The typeface licence: Suisse Int'l or Neue Haas Grotesk.
  4. Who makes the first photographs, and when. Xing's printed objects are the best subject that the studio has.
  5. Permission from Xing to show her work and her hands.
  6. A project email address. The contact section is not usable without it.
  7. The two pending plates on the homepage. Fill them or remove them before the site is public.