We believe less is genuinely more
Minimal Clean was founded in Aoyama, Tokyo in 2021. We started with one question: why do the most beautiful stores — physical and digital — all share the same quality of radical simplicity?
Five years and 200+ projects later, we're still asking that question, and still finding new answers in the data.
How Minimal Clean began
Our founder, Yuki Nakamura, spent six years designing store interiors for luxury brands across Tokyo, Kyoto, and Paris. The principle that emerged from every project was the same: the brands that removed the most sold the most.
When the eCommerce era arrived, the same principle applied. Stores that stripped away navigation clutter, promotional noise, and competing CTAs outperformed those that loaded every pixel with selling messages.
In 2021, Yuki gathered a small team of designers, UX researchers, and conversion specialists in Aoyama. The studio's founding brief was simple: apply the discipline of minimal physical retail to digital storefronts, and measure every decision by conversion impact.
Today, Minimal Clean operates as a fully data-driven design consultancy. We combine aesthetic rigour with rigorous A/B testing, ensuring that every design decision can be validated by performance metrics — not just designer intuition.
Our three values
Restraint as discipline
We say no to more than we say yes. Every element we remove is a decision we've made consciously, backed by data on what actually improves conversion.
Data over opinion
Beautiful design that doesn't convert is decoration. We test every meaningful design decision and let the numbers determine what stays and what goes.
Respect for the shopper
No dark patterns, no fake urgency, no manipulation. We believe long-term brand loyalty is built through honest, frictionless experiences — not tricks.
Twelve people. One obsession.
We keep the team intentionally small so every client works directly with senior designers, not account managers.
Yuki Nakamura
Ex-interior designer for Comme des Garçons and Issey Miyake retail. Brings physical space principles to digital design.
Haruki Watanabe
Former conversion optimisation lead at Rakuten. Obsessed with the gap between what designers think users do and what they actually do.
Sora Tanaka
Typography specialist and grid system architect. Every pixel in a Minimal Clean project passes through Sora's exacting eye.
Based in Aoyama — designed for the world
Our Aoyama studio sits in the heart of Tokyo's most design-conscious neighbourhood. The same streets that inspired a generation of fashion minimalists inspire our digital work every day.
We work with clients across Japan, Europe, and North America — fully remotely, with all project management, reviews, and design sprints conducted asynchronously to respect time zones.
Work with us
We take on 8–10 new clients per year. Tell us about your store and let's see if we're a good fit.
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