Mikki Tam · Brand & Retail Experience Design

01 · Experience & Commerce · Japan

One brand, told two ways: the journey and the storefront

A venture I founded around Japanese craft, run through two channels of the same brand story: an in-person cultural program, and an e-commerce storefront.

iF Design AwardGood Design AwardJapan Travel Award 2026 · Finalist

↗ IG · 2024 ↗ IG · 2025

"Going to the urushi forest, learning the harvest, then using the urushi for repair, then seeing the finished works. It felt really well-rounded. I didn't expect to feel invited to learn more, rather than just being a tourist."Programme participant, USA, 2024

Taketombo Cultural Travel Experience

Founder & Brand Lead · Taketombo · 2018–present

Challenge

Build a cultural experience with a clear brand story, one that reaches a specific traveler, offers something they can't get elsewhere, and holds up as it repeats across different makers and places.

Human lens

Start from the traveler and the story: who they are, what the encounter should mean. Then build the arc: from the urushi forest where the material begins, through the hands-on repair, to the finished piece, so every stage carries the brand.

Outcome

A program that draws an international audience and repeats without losing what makes it particular.

Visit the storefront, goenne.com ↗

Goenne · Craft commerce: authenticity, artisan-first

Founder · Goenne · goenne.com

Challenge

Market Japanese craft objects online while carrying the same story the in-person program tells, establishing a distinct brand voice amongst the cookie-cutter, highly stylized Japanese lifestyle brands online.

Authenticity

Real materials, sourced directly from the makers, backed by relationships and an institutional track record that predate the recent wave of craft commerce.

Artisan-first

Story-first architecture: the maker and the material lead, the reader meets the artisan first, and the product follows.

02 · Retail & Brand Design · Japan

Nike Harajuku, Tokyo (DTC)

NSW Brand Design · Nike Japan · 2016–2017

The Harajuku flagship as a canvas: a run of seasonal product campaigns staged inside one DTC store, each its own brand moment.

1 / 4

Spatial display and brand storytelling for the Tech Pack launch: from the multi-storey façade to the in-store system and the photobooth experience prototype.

1 / 4

SNKRS / basketball retail theatre: the past, present and future of Nike Basketball told through a 12 Soles sneaker-box world.

1 / 6

One campaign across two modalities: the Kiss My Airs in-store spectacle, and the Air Max Day / Vapormax off-site event experience (with Wieden & Kennedy).

03 · Retail & Brand Design · Greater China

Store architecture: solve the space, then tell the story

ConceptSpace PlanningConsumer JourneySite & Traffic StudyFaçade DesignConstruction DrawingsCodeFF&E

Where Japan is brand design, Greater China is architecture: each store a distinct spatial problem (grade changes, split units, untouchable façades) solved through architectural intervention, then embedding brand story.

Nike, Swire · Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

Running Category Expression · 539 sqm · opened October 2014

A prime Causeway Bay corner that fought back: two separate retail units with a foot of grade change between them, a ceiling as low as 2.4 m, irregular columns crowding the storefront, and a façade that, by code, could not be re-clad.

Combine 2 separate units into one deep space (±1'-0" grade)

Lowest ceiling @ 2.4 m

Keep every existing irregular pilaster

Large irregular columns at the storefront

Graphic zone above ground floor: vinyl only

Next to Victoria Park, the marathon finish

Existing: the problem

Proposed: the intervention

The grade change is turned into the design: moved and re-worked as a deliberate threshold, with the main street entrance reset so two units read as one Running journey. Click either drawing to read it full-size.

1 / 5

Nike, Smile · Fengjia, Taichung

MonoBrand Flagship · 1,586 sqm · opened October 2014

A three-storey flagship split across two disconnected ground-floor units with separate entrances (a local tenant wedged between them, unbuyable), and no staircase linking the upper floors. The problem was circulation.

2 disconnected GF units, 2 separate entrances

Local tenant wedged between, lease unbuyable

No existing staircase connecting 2F–3F

Truncated façade, mismatched spandrel heights

Heavy night-market foot traffic (Fengjia)

College-town running city

1F: the fracture

2F: the new spine

3F: into the journey

Read left to right: a fractured ground floor, a single grand staircase pushed to the façade as the new spine, and a third floor recovered from tenant storage. Three fragmented levels resolved into one continuous journey, with the staircase doubling as the visual cue that pulls traffic upward.

1 / 5

Fixture & brand-experience development

Nike Greater China design lab · concept & prototype

Concept and fixture development at the regional design lab, including the Jordan Wing Chandelier (490 gold-plated AJ1s), basketball-only feature walls, and the Kicks Lounge fixture program.

04 · Architecture & Delivery · United States

Built work: concept through construction

ConceptSchematic DesignConstruction DrawingsCodePrototypingFF&E / Materials

Earlier built work in the United States: proof of the full delivery arc, from concept and schematic design through construction drawings, code, prototyping, and materials.

1 / 7

Concept

A new retail-banking concept, a bank planned like an experience flagship, zoned as a consumer journey: Attract → Gauge → Engage → Connect.

Delivery

Schematic through construction documentation: zoning, plan development, plan perspective, FF&E and material specification.

Built

Union Square, realised: the interactive marketing wall, the live-data media wall, and the branded ATM hall.

1 / 6

Build

A new-construction entertainment complex: through fire-code and permitting, prototype development of the interactive floor and wall units, and construction observation to completion.

1 / 5

Craft

Brand experience and wayfinding for the NHL's Manhattan HQ: a real frozen-ice strip cast into the cocktail bar counter, and a Stanley Cup shrine with a cast-glass sculpture; material research and vendor liaison throughout.

About

A path that converges on one question: what does a brand mean, and how do you make people feel it? It runs through fine art and architecture, brand and retail design leadership, and building a company from the ground up.

I've spent two decades on both sides of that question. Inside global companies, leading flagship retail and brand design for Nike across Greater China and Japan; and on my own, founding Taketombo and Goenne to bring Japanese craft to an international audience through physical journeys and a digital storefront.

I work across cultures and languages: native English and Chinese, reading Japanese, two decades between the US and Asia. And across both halves of the discipline: leading design inside large organisations, and founding and building a brand and a company.

As design becomes AI-native, I believe judgment and craft are where the value moves: knowing what's worth making, shaping how a brand feels, and getting the human details right. Tools can generate endless options; the taste to choose and refine them is the work, and it's what I've spent two decades building.

Human experiences,designed to connect.

One brand, told two ways: the journey and the storefront

Taketombo Cultural Travel Experience

Goenne · Craft commerce: authenticity, artisan-first

Nike Harajuku, Tokyo (DTC)

Store architecture: solve the space, then tell the story

Nike, Swire · Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

Nike, Smile · Fengjia, Taichung

Fixture & brand-experience development

Built work: concept through construction

Hendricks Gin · Airport Bar, a brand world imagined

Design for the real world.