Love Japanese food? Crispy pork tonkatsu. Melt-in-the-mouth sashimi. An elegant 15-course kaiseki menu. Grilled yakitori skewers. Great Japanese eats go way beyond sushi and ramen. And if, like us, your love for Japanese food rivals the thrill of exploring new cities, then we want to help you discover the very best the world has to offer.

Japanese food is an exciting culinary labyrinth just waiting to be explored. That's why we created JAPPAN, a smartphone app to help foodie travellers discover our favourite Japanese eateries. Explore gourmet restaurants, one-dish wonders, traditional teahouses, cozy yatais and sophisticated bars — from Tokyo to Paris.

After ten years of exploring Japan and learning all we can about Japanese food, we’re ready to share what we’ve discovered. Now our all-time favourite spots are yours to devour.

JAPPAN makes it easy to get right to the heart of Japan’s culinary culture. Scroll, choose, navigate and take a seat. Then put your phone away and immerse yourself in a delicious and unique food experience. Itadakimasu!

Restaurants in Japan often have a somewhat intimidating characteristic for Western visitors: from the outside, it's rare to see inside. Additionally, without language skills, understanding what's on the menu can be limited.

Discover

With this awareness, we introduced JAPPAN. Our user experience begins with the concept of discovery, which we’ve translated through the use of transitioning content from blurred to clear, mimicking the experience of opening the shoji door of a traditional Japanese restaurant. As the thumb glides across the UI,the interplay of images and text, transitioning from blurred to clear begins. The slideshow employs a similar effect, playing with well-selected, mouthwatering images and cutouts. Unseen yet giving the app an entertaining character.

Ease of use and get fluent in Japanese food

The app provides simple navigation and offers an offline collection of carefully curated restaurant tips from both Japan and beyond, sorted by cities. Users can easily select and save their favorite spots, navigate with the offline map, and access additional information on ingredients and specialties through a comprehensive index and get fluent in Japanese food.

Future Growth

In the future, additional collaborators are expected to contribute their tips. For this reason, we wanted to create a framework that is simple and understated, yet still gives the app its own character. Each collaborator will have their own bio page where their tips will also be listed.

The core idea of “discovering japanese food” was visually translated through a consistent design system./ [We translated the core idea of discovering this exciting culinary labyrinth in a consistent visual system.] The interplay of images and text, transitioning from blurred to clear, represents/symbolizes this idea (of discovering). The slideshows utilize the same interplay and offer users a unique and distinct experience.This design principle occurs again and again. Having the Japanese writing system in mind we integrated this concept of vertical writing for clear bilingual navigation within the app. The typographic bands and the blurry effect are iconic and applied on all kinds of media.

The sans-serif typeface Futter Grotesk by Swiss Designer David Lüthi works particularly well for on-screen reading, while the Google Font Noto Sans was used for Japanese texts. Both typefaces have a similar ductus and work well together on both iOS and Android.

Beneath the main description of each restaurant you find, we call it the Bento box, filled with important tidbits you need to know about the place.

Our cross-media approach results in a consistent visual language that leads to a seamless and comprehensive user experience – across the app as well as the brand as a whole.

In addition to the carefully curated tips, the app provides users with a broad and comprehensive index about Japanese food. Exploring short articles about lesser-known ingredients, dishes and other fun facts helps to understand Japanese culture and cuisine.

One of the biggest challenges (still) when traveling through Japan is the lack of internet connection. The app comes with an offline map so you don’t miss out on the tastiest tonkatsu served on the top floor of a confusing ten-story building in Shinjuku when your Wi-Fi cuts out. You get where you need to be with the offline map and simple access instructions.

JAPPAN is the creation of two Japanese-food-obsessed designers from Zurich who want to shine a light on the immense variety of the Japanese culinary landscape. (And let’s be real, this project is a guilty pleasure too 😉). We worked in close collaboration with Zurich-based app agency Milk Interactive to develop the concept and design for iOS and Android.

This project is only possible thanks to the great commitment of various contributors and supporters. First and foremost we want to thank our official sponsors, whose support means the world to us: [Cuesta AG](http://cuesta.ch), Maria Cuérel, Jakob Blattner and [Milk Interactive](https://www.milkinteractive.ch). Furthermore, we want to thank everyone who supported our crowdfunding campaign in the summer of 2023. And last but not least, we want to thank everyone who has shared their feedback and helped spread the idea.