During field research, a structural discovery emerged: Hakodate's culture is built, with remarkable consistency, on the concept of "pairs." Night views split into "front" and "back." The cloisters divide into the male Trappist monastery and the female Trappistine convent. Even the city's name was found to pair "Hako" (steep cliff) with "Tate" (high hill). Rather than treating this as a tourism factoid, placing it at the core of the business concept — as the defining vision for what Hakodate stands for — was the decision that set the direction for the entire project. The concept shop inside Hakodate Airport was implemented as a physical space where visitors could experience that identity firsthand. We led the full brand architecture, from articulating the vision through to visual identity and web experience design.

The experiential value of "something only found at Hakodate Airport" did not emerge from product differentiation — it was the outcome of vision design. Original products co-developed with local manufacturers became touchpoints where visitors could physically experience Hakodate's identity, connecting travelers and regional industries through a new context. The project received the 2016 Good Design Award, recognized as a practical model of regional branding that discovers and articulates a region's unique cultural resources, places them at the core of a business concept, and integrates tourism, local industry, and brand into a unified whole.