2026.7.31
From a logotype request to
designing web communication
── AFURI’s new venture “AFURI BREWING”
── The request was for a single logo. From there began a dialogue between AFURI and mount
“It’s my alcohol-free day, but I might just have one,” said President Nakamura with a happy smile during our talk, a freshly made beer on the table. Before long, the two makers’ conversation descended toward the very heart of making.
AFURI, famous for its ramen, and mount inc., which handled the brand and e-commerce site for AFURI’s new venture, the craft beer “AFURI BREWING.” Two companies with utterly different positions and materials arrived, through dialogue, at a quiet conviction: that they are “the same kind of maker.”
Members
Speakers
林 英和
AD
President Nakamura
Hiroto Nakamura | AFURI Inc.｜(Representative Director)
Text
楠本 莉沙
Dir
Photography
井出 裕太
Des
It began with an introduction from AI
Surprisingly, it was AI that brought the two companies together.
President Nakamura
Quite simply, it was ChatGPT.
“AFURI is launching a craft beer as a new venture. I want to commission a logo. List a few good creative firms.”
— Posing that to the AI and prospecting firms he’d had no prior ties with, the name that came up second or third was mount.
“I wondered, why us?” says Hayashi.
That’s exactly why the first online meeting began, before any talk of the work, with a self-introduction: “are you sure we’re the right fit?” Even so, President Nakamura’s mind, he says, was made up early.
President Nakamura
At our first meeting, the excitement was written all over my face.
We discussed it internally and decided right away.
The deciding factor: a thousand fungo of kerning
There were other candidates —
a team from a major agency, a group of famous creators.
Yet what moved him was the opposite of flashy.
The deciding factor, he says, was hearing that mount steadily keeps up basic training in-house, like “a thousand fungo of kerning.”
Not the flash of aerial combat, but what dwells in plain repetition.
That’s where President Nakamura placed his bet.
President Nakamura
At a glance it’s not flashy, but a pared-down strength that stays universal even 10 or 20 years from now. I wanted that sense of simply being there.
林
We keep adjusting the letter-spacing by so many pixels, on and on. Literally on and on. And yet most of that difference is something only we, the makers, can even tell.
And President Nakamura, too, speaks of the same texture in different words.
President Nakamura
Clarity isn’t always good. The essence hides beneath decoration and is hard to see. Only what has endured long weathering remains.
The two had begun to speak of the same thing in different words.
A pixel-level “catch,” and its “invention”
The project’s climax was the Japanese logotype. Into the end of a smoothly flowing typeface, a tiny “quirk” is planted. President Nakamura calls it an “invention.”
President Nakamura
A catch so faint you can’t tell whether it’s even there. But when it’s scattered throughout, the whole thing hits you.
On my own, I don’t think I’d have reached it in 15 years.
Merely being beautiful isn’t enough. Within an ordinary look, something like grit peeks through. That subtle difference may go unnoticed by anyone. Which is exactly why President Nakamura noticing and empathizing with it was, for mount, the most heart-warming moment of all.
And this wasn’t limited to the logo — it applied to every phase.
What remains most vividly in mount’s memory is what happened during the implementation proposal.
This time, we held back flashy effects and steadily nailed down each interaction one by one. They might not be pleased; they might not understand — that anxiety assailed us every day.
Yet President Nakamura, from the very first look, caught those fine nuances and empathized.
The surprise of our engineer Suta turned into heat, and brought tears to his eyes.
林
Truly, even when you’re working in earnest, it often goes unnoticed by those around you.
Having it noticed was, at every turn, so gratifying.
Not just speed — the power to show the “answer”
President Nakamura is astonished by the precision of mount’s work.
President Nakamura
Once they understood the nuance we conveyed, by the next round the answers were all lined up.
I’d expected several more back-and-forths, yet they arrived there on the very next turn. With incredible precision.
It’s not that they arrive in an instant, as if by magic. Repeated verification that never shows on the surface quietly supports it. What astonished President Nakamura was that this way of working had properly reached him.
President Nakamura
They locate where the problem lies, like a doctor.
Even over the aspect ratio of a photo, mount, after exhaustively testing several options, presented one firmly: “this, absolutely, is the one.”
President Nakamura
I instantly sensed I should absolutely follow the conviction of front-line people who’d reached it with overwhelming resolution. It was so reassuring.
Hayashi continues.
林
We would never say “this is good” merely out of our own ego. If it fulfills the purpose we’re meant to fulfill, we can say “it’s this one” with confidence.
At those words and that attitude, and everything leading up to them, President Nakamura nodded deeply.
Makers sit at the same desk each day, agonizing, brooding. To have that inner life scooped up in words is rare. President Nakamura is said to have remarked earlier, “I’m so glad to be working with all of you right now.” Respect for each other’s work quietly crossed here.
One photo, taken together
For photography, we didn’t commission only an external partner team. How to sustain quality as AFURI operates it in-house going forward
—— from that question, we brought in AFURI’s in-house photographer, Sato (AFURI Inc., photographer), and built the shooting plan together in lockstep. Looked at in isolation, it adds to the workload. Even so, mount prioritized the true purpose: “good quality, for the long term.”
“For the first time in a while, I got to take photos that feel like my own again. A shoot with that raw, edgy tension really is fun after all.” Sato, his excitement not yet cooled, is said to have kept talking for a full 30 minutes.
For the key-visual shoot, under the concept “let’s recreate Mt. Afuri,” we went to the mountain beforehand, checked the actual trees on Mt. Afuri, and prepared the same species for the shoot. And what we used was only the shadows of those trees.
President Nakamura
So this is what first-rate work is. Not just technique — people with taste taking the time and trouble to doggedly choose the most fitting thing.
The drone photo of Mt. Afuri that graces the top page, too, is one image yansu reached through many rounds of scouting and shooting, reading the light and shadow that shift by the hour. For the mountain’s expression — which wouldn’t show a good face even when you set out at 3 a.m. — both perseverance and luck had to come together.
Photography
yansu（YOIN inc.）@yansukim
Ryuta Sato（AFURI Inc.）
Flower Coordinator
Yoko Harada（75(nago)）
Prop Stylist
ogawa masumi ( YOIN inc. )
wataru miyashita ( YOIN inc.)
As fellow “makers”
The deeper the dialogue, the more the two saw their own reflection in each other’s work.
Making flavor, making space, making experience. Composing design, choosing words, actually making it move.
Though what they handle differs, an uncompromising craftsman’s temperament, an obsession with pushing quality within countless constraints, and the stance of “placing the customer’s joy beyond problem-solving” overlapped to a startling degree.
Flavor made without relying on chemical ingredients. The idea that, to give customers a good experience, you first put in place a system where the staff can be comfortable. The large-scale challenge of a central kitchen lies on that same line.
林
There’s an aesthetic that allows no compromise, and they properly pursue it.
Presumptuous as it is to say, I felt we were entirely the same kind of maker.
President Nakamura, too, is unstinting in his respect for mount.
President Nakamura
A boy who gets to play baseball with Shohei Ohtani — isn’t that a happy thing?
Having actually done it, I really felt that.
The most enjoyable time, arriving after always prioritizing what must be done over what one wants to do
Things he’d long put off in a corner of his mind as “someday, if I can,” have now begun to move, one after another.
President Nakamura
If you’re going to do it anyway, a challenge is more interesting. Luckily, what must be done has overlapped with what I want to do — I’m enjoying this fortunate stretch.
To the sparkling energy of those days, mount responds.
林
I made it thinking, don’t lose to that energy. It just needs to reach, properly, the people it should reach.
The same philosophy as the ramen runs through the beer’s flavor-making, too. President Nakamura calls it “the art of balance.”
Keeping the rich umami and aroma of a hazy IPA, while subtracting the bitterness and alcohol content. Subtract too much and it’s wanting; lean too far and it wears you out. They aim for that exquisite single point.
President Nakamura
People who don’t drink much craft beer say “I can drink this,” and it makes connoisseurs nod, too. Wide at the entrance, deep within.
That aim reached the drinker straight, too. I’m the proof. It made me — who can’t drink beer — realize: “beer can be this delicious.”
The website as a “vessel”
President Nakamura described the implemented website as a “visual scripture.” There’s a real sense there that the vessel pulls the contents upward.
President Nakamura
Put on a uniform and you straighten up; put on sweats and you slacken. You naturally become the kind of substance that matches something of that precision.
We’ve been given clothes that only suit a proper physique. We can’t do anything half-baked anymore.
The look on his face as he said this, gazing skyward, seemed excited.
mount echoes it, too.
林
Vessel and contents. However fine the contents, an ill-suited vessel leaves a dissonance. That’s exactly why we put into words, through repeated interviews, the core of “this is what we’re aiming for,” went all the way to the central kitchen to observe, and built up a fitting “vessel.”
Reconciling the lightness of the look (its comfort) with the essence of the speed a website “should inherently be light” about (the swiftness of page transitions). “AFURI isn’t doing beer on a whim — they’re in earnest.” Embodying that earnestness and AFURI-like sense of balance in design, implementation, photography, and words too was non-negotiable.
And the copy that was born from it —
“We wanted to try making beer, in an AFURI way.”
And the single line that pierces to the taste —
“A beer like the wind. A beer like music played.”
President Nakamura
Freedom and openness — things you can’t see but can feel. I became sure that I like things with that kind of balance.
Copy Writing
Chirako Namima（Sun-Ad Co., Ltd.）
A promise to keep making: what we’ll make from here
The kinds of beer will grow, photos will be swapped, and the site will be updated through operation. Little by little it draws closer to completion — toward “the world’s coolest site.”
President Nakamura’s gaze is already fixed beyond that. Now that “what must be done” and “what one wants to do” overlap, ideas keep rising one after another.
And mount entrusts it thus: “Please keep updating and making the website. We’re cheering you on. We’re looking forward to it.” “What can we make together next?” Hayashi lets slip.
President Nakamura
There are still several projects I want to do together.
And I don’t mean that as mere pleasantry.
Like the wind, light. And yet, strong. This dialogue, begun over a single beer, looks set to continue for a long time yet.
President Nakamura and his staff always begin their greetings with a handshake. Seeing this, I honestly felt, “how nice.”
That day especially, it came back to me. The presence of “people” in the process of creating something beloved. In these times when AI is greatly affecting our lives and work, in making things, we want to keep going without forgetting that “texture.” That is what I think.
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