case study · graphic design

tokyo zero — building a three-theme merch line

Tokyo Zero is a small-drop anime merch project — 47 products, three thematic storefronts, one voice. Here's how the brand system, typography, and page architecture came together.

01 · voice + audience

The core reader is the person who already knows the reference — Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, Needy Streamer Overload, Genshin, HoYo, Vtubers. The brand assumes fluency instead of explaining. Copy is short, lowercase, punchy — closer to a Discord message than a marketing brochure.

"small drops. heavy print. character work for the people who already know."

02 · three storefronts, one system

misc

catalog, curated

The neutral hub — magazine-style catalog with numbered cards, hairline dividers, slate-violet accent. Serves as the anchor when the themed rooms feel too loud.

psg

candy-halftone spectacle

Panty & Stocking pastiche — hot pink frills, halftone circles, 7-card product showcase on a tilted cyan slab. Loads with a slam-drop TOKYO ZERO intro.

nso

crt streamer decay

Needy Streamer Overload homage — chrome background, RGB-glitching popup product boxes, scanlines everywhere. Character sprites for Ame + KAngel anchor the hero.

03 · typography

Apex Mk3

.contact

Monospace. Titles, labels, navigation. Reads as terminal output — matches the "design + code" story.

Beam Visionary

from the desk.

Script. Eyebrows, brand marks. The one moment of handwriting in an otherwise-mechanical system.

Branding Pro

Body copy, running text, product descriptions.

Sans. Body / product copy. Neutral, wide x-height, five weights. Does the invisible work.

NSO CRT

SIGNAL > NO SYNC

Pixel bitmap. NSO theme only. Chyrons, popup labels, HUD text. Ties the CRT visual metaphor together.

04 · color

Base palette locks the catalog in a soft-white / slate-violet universe. Each themed room breaks that mold on purpose — PSG goes hot pink + cyan + gold, NSO goes chrome + magenta + electric blue. The themes are supposed to feel like walking into a different shop; the misc is the hallway between.

#f5f4f0 base
#14131a ink
#5061b9 slate-violet
#ff4da6 psg pink
#3deaff psg cyan
#fd7ac0 nso magenta

05 · character work

Every product carries a hand-illustrated character. Deskmats print at 900×400mm with rounded corners; tapestries at 60×90cm on polyester with grommets; prints at 12×18in on satin card stock. The full character roster spans Genshin, Star Rail, HoYo IPs, Vtuber and Hololive members, and the two flagship PSG/NSO castings.

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how it ships →

The whole storefront runs on a serverless AWS stack provisioned with Terraform. Walk through the infrastructure or browse the catalog.