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Check out this beautiful app from Japan to help you split your restaurant bill

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See the original article in Japanese In Japan people will often split the bill when they eat out with friends. But the default calculator app on your iPhone is a little over-complicated for this task, and it’s a little ugly too. But Kamakura-based design studio KSKT had made something better. Its app, appropriately named Split Bill, was made just for this purpose. And it’s beautiful. It is minimalist in its feature set, allowing the user to just add and divide a given amount of money. Its smart design uses color gradation in a manner that leaves a lasting impression. Split Bill is currently available for 100 yen ($0.99), in Japanese, English, German, Korean, and Chinese. KSKT has previously designed apps for many startups, many of which we have already covered here on The Bridge. The company designed for the iPhone app for e-commerce startup Base, the logo and iPhone app for photo book service Niiice, and the logo, website design, and branding for PocketConcierge. When I looked at Split Bill, I started wondering about what kind of benefit a design studio gets when it develops its own service or app, as opposed to designing one for a client. For example,…

Split Bill calculator for splitting the bill

See the original article in Japanese

In Japan people will often split the bill when they eat out with friends. But the default calculator app on your iPhone is a little over-complicated for this task, and it’s a little ugly too. But Kamakura-based design studio KSKT had made something better. Its app, appropriately named Split Bill, was made just for this purpose.

And it’s beautiful.

It is minimalist in its feature set, allowing the user to just add and divide a given amount of money. Its smart design uses color gradation in a manner that leaves a lasting impression.

Split Bill is currently available for 100 yen ($0.99), in Japanese, English, German, Korean, and Chinese.

KSKT has previously designed apps for many startups, many of which we have already covered here on The Bridge. The company designed for the iPhone app for e-commerce startup Base, the logo and iPhone app for photo book service Niiice, and the logo, website design, and branding for PocketConcierge.

When I looked at Split Bill, I started wondering about what kind of benefit a design studio gets when it develops its own service or app, as opposed to designing one for a client. For example, we recently reported on about design studio AQ who will soon launch a subscription coffee service. But they also do client work, and I assume these efforts developing their own products have an effect on their work for third parties as well.

When it comes to developing web-services or applications, your work is rarely complete upon launch. Updates, improvements and maintenance are typically needed after release. Perhaps when a design studio develops its own applications or web-services it can gain more insights on this post-launch phase of the product life-cycle.

If you are an entrepreneur looking to launch a web-service or an application, you might consider finding a designer (such as those mentioned above) that has actual experience operating web services. It will likely result in a better overall product.

New Japanese subscription service delivers fresh roasted coffee to your door

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It has been interesting to watch the development of many online subscription commerce services over the past few years. Depending on the product, some of these services have been successful while others have not. I suspect product has a lot to do with it. For example, I’ve subscribed to a number of products using Amazon’s Subscribe and Save program. And one thing I’ve noticed is that if I don’t select the right delivery frequency, some things can build up faster than I can use them. In a case like that, I’m disappointed to see them arrive on my doorstep. But products that have a limited lifespan which would be tailor-made to such subscription commerce. I’d love to have a basket of fruit delivered weekly to my door. Perishable items would not carry over into the next week, and you’d always be delighted to see a new basket arrive. Perhaps following the same logic, US-based Tonx has done well with its subscription roasted coffee service. According to the company, “The full flavor of coffee begins to reveal itself a few days after it’s roasted, and starts to wane after a couple weeks.” They deliver coffee to customers every other week, based…

kawakura

It has been interesting to watch the development of many online subscription commerce services over the past few years. Depending on the product, some of these services have been successful while others have not. I suspect product has a lot to do with it.

For example, I’ve subscribed to a number of products using Amazon’s Subscribe and Save program. And one thing I’ve noticed is that if I don’t select the right delivery frequency, some things can build up faster than I can use them. In a case like that, I’m disappointed to see them arrive on my doorstep.

But products that have a limited lifespan which would be tailor-made to such subscription commerce. I’d love to have a basket of fruit delivered weekly to my door. Perishable items would not carry over into the next week, and you’d always be delighted to see a new basket arrive.

Perhaps following the same logic, US-based Tonx has done well with its subscription roasted coffee service. According to the company, “The full flavor of coffee begins to reveal itself a few days after it’s roasted, and starts to wane after a couple weeks.” They deliver coffee to customers every other week, based on that time frame.

Java for Japan

Regrettably Tonx does not yet deliver to Japan. But thankfully, the folks over at AQ just launched a site that will deliver your java fix twice monthly [1]. It’s called Kawakura, and you can sign up on their teaser page right now to be notified of when they officially start.

I asked AQ’s Chris Palmieri about why they thought something like this would work in Japan. He explained:

Kawakura started as a quest to get the most enjoyment possible from my morning ritual of making coffee. For me this meant always having great beans at home, an understanding of where they come from and how to get the most flavor from them. 

A subscription model obviously solves the first part, the logistics of buying fresh beans every week, but we’re more excited by how Kawakura can facilitate a conversation between the roaster and the customer. Conversation is how we learn from each other, and how simple routines can become the favorite part of our day.

Don’t look now, but I think AQ just made being coffee-sipping hipster designers cool again [2].

I’m told they’ll start off with a small customer base and see what they learn. For now the company is still talking with local roasters, and learning as much as they can before they make their first shipment.

I’m not a big coffee drinker myself, but I’m glad to see someone take a shot at this here in Japan. All you caffeine-dependent Japanese startups out there are encouraged to share this link with your boss. That Red Bull will rot your teeth, I hear.


  1. You may remember AQ from such projects as Hi and their AQ Lift program.  ↩

  2. Who am I gonna make fun of now? Maybe Saskatchewan.  ↩

Say Hi to beautiful location-based experiences

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I like content presented on maps. And I’ve been a big fan of Hitotoki, developed by Craig Mod and the folks at Tokyo-based AQ, since a few years back. It was a great collection of geo-tagged stories, wrapped in the kind of beautiful design that great stories deserve. But looking back now, I think that this location-based content concept was a little ahead of its time. I asked AQ’s Chris Palmieri about the state of Hitotoki a few months back, and I was pretty excited when he told me that it would be relaunching. After a bit of a wait, the new service is now online and is known simply as Hi, living on the web at SayHi.co [1]. Like Hitotoki, it asks you to ‘sketch’ a moment from where you are, comprised of a photo and some text. The process is optimized for smartphones, geotagging your moment as you add it. Chris notes that Hitotoki and Hi began with the same goal of a 500-word moment, but points out that “how each [one] makes that happen couldn’t be more different.” I had a chance to take an early look at Hi, testing it out over the past few months….

sayhi-screenshot
A moment from Nick K on SayHi.co

I like content presented on maps. And I’ve been a big fan of Hitotoki, developed by Craig Mod and the folks at Tokyo-based AQ, since a few years back. It was a great collection of geo-tagged stories, wrapped in the kind of beautiful design that great stories deserve. But looking back now, I think that this location-based content concept was a little ahead of its time.

I asked AQ’s Chris Palmieri about the state of Hitotoki a few months back, and I was pretty excited when he told me that it would be relaunching. After a bit of a wait, the new service is now online and is known simply as Hi, living on the web at SayHi.co [1]. Like Hitotoki, it asks you to ‘sketch’ a moment from where you are, comprised of a photo and some text. The process is optimized for smartphones, geotagging your moment as you add it. Chris notes that Hitotoki and Hi began with the same goal of a 500-word moment, but points out that “how each [one] makes that happen couldn’t be more different.”

I had a chance to take an early look at Hi, testing it out over the past few months. So far my contributions are few and far between – both in terms of time and distance – but there’s a reason for that. While Hi doesn’t ask you to be overly meticulous in composing your moments, for me, the incredible design of the site implicitly demands a certain level of reflection before publishing. It makes me want take a weekend train out of Tokyo, and not come back until I have snapped the perfect selfie with a buddist zen master, and a compose a clever photo caption – preferably in haiku form – to go along with it.

[We] made the sketching tool as enjoyable to use as possible, because we want people to use it over and over and over again.

But interestingly, the publishing flow imposes some reflection by design. After uploading a moment, other Hi users may (or may not) ask you to expand on that moment. This ’Tell me more" request is both a reward for a good contribution, and peer encouragement to take it further [2]. It’s like the applause that encourages a speaker to keep talking with confidence when he’s on stage.

It turns out that the time gap between your initial sketch and your follow up elaboration is conducive to a better published piece. Chris explains that the first step is called a ‘sketch’ for a reason:

We named the initial act of creating with Hi “sketching”, but made the sketching tool as enjoyable to use as possible, because we want people to use it over and over and over again.

But the subsequent steps in the process lets you digest, process, and maybe come up with something you didn’t think of while you were in your moment. By breaking up the process in this way, it doesn’t feel like a process at all. More like a brief instant message session, or a FourSquare check-in that others might actually care about.

Craig Mod explains that the high-quality feedback loops that exist within Hi (the ‘tell me more’ and ‘thanks’ functions) have been effective so far:

It sounds a bit complex but in practice it’s proven to be quite a fluid little interaction model and has already produced over 80,000 words of content — the order of many of those words quite excellent! — in a little over 10 days.

say-hi-mobile-view

I tend to notice more remarkable things when I travel, and so I find I use Hi more while on the road. But because I like Hi, I find that it’s also prompting me to look for remarkable things in my own neighborhood, seeing it in a slightly different light.

But at the same time, my own privacy concerns keep me from adding moments that are too close to home – so that greatly limits my use, although I expect that may not be as big of a concern for most people. Despite that concern, I really love it a lot and will continue to use it.

It’s clear that Craig and Chris and company love Hi a lot too. As far as websites go, this one is pretty immaculately groomed, and they really believe in the content format. And even though this is a labor of love, there are also hopes that it can be a business as well. Craig says:

This needs to be, at some point, sustainable. For now we’re testing hypothesis around engagement; if the core creative ideas don’t work then it’s pointless to consider the business side of things.

Craig has himeself written a great introduction to Hi over on Medium if you’d like to dive deeper into what it’s all about. Or if you’d like to sign up for it yourself, I have some invitations here (thanks Craig!) if any of our readers would like to sign up.

Personally I really hope that Hi does well, in much the same way that I’m rooting for time-machine app Yesterscape, which archives moments of today for tomorrow. I’m still dreaming of a web service that will do a better job of archiving our stories and culture, letting us scrub through a rich timeline of any given location. I think there’s a huge need for services of this kind, and I really hope we can see more spring up in the future.


  1. The old Hitotoki still exists as Hitotoki classic if you ever want to browse those moments.  ↩

  2. If you don’t want to develop it further, that’s cool too. Just click ‘that’s all I’ve got’.  ↩