Laji is a hair and make-up studio located in the city of Osaka, Japan, with a distinctive interior design developed by dot architects. It features chipboard dividers and mirror frames, pegboard panels, strip lighting, exposed concrete ceilings, brick walls and utilities, concrete cast with wood surface texture, red stained floors as well as custom furniture created by Ryohei Yoshiyuki. It is a combination that makes the space appear more like an urban art studio or on-trend coffee shop rather than anything you might traditionally associate with a make-up and hairstyling space which, when considered alongside the studio’s identity, designed by UMA, is very likely the point. The project included logotype, business cards, discount certificates and postcards.

Through uncoated and unbleached boards, stencil cut sans-serif typography and plenty of unprinted space Laji’s brand identity draws on many of the design cues of the studio’s interior space and the furniture that populates it but sets these alongside small illustrative flourishes, unusual folds, hand drawn typographical detail, the vivid colour of neon papers and a softer set of pastels across a variety of stationery. The result is a confident and striking mix of utility, craft and urban city scapes that spans and unites both physical environment and identity.

Design: UMA
Interior: dot architects
Furniture: Ryohei Yoshiyuki
Photography: Takumi Ota / Yoshiro Masuda
Opinion: Richard Baird