Brand
Identity
Name: べんきょうBox
Tagline: A box of small tools for learning Japanese
べんきょうBox (Benkyo Box) is a collection of tools to help you with Japanese study, practice and word discovery. With fine-grained translation, dictionary, practice conversations and more.
Categories: language-learning, japanese, productivity
Founded: 2024
Entity: Blue Speck Ltd (GB)
Voice
Tone: calm, helpful, encouraging
Formality: Casual, considered, plain. Treats learners as capable. No slang, no corporate stiffness.
Personality: Patient and matter-of-fact. Explains tools by what they let you do, not by hype. Trusts the user already understands why they're learning.
Language: en-GB (en)
Avoids:
- Superlatives and hype ('revolutionary', 'best-in-class', 'game-changing')
- Romaji in body copy where kana or kanji would be more accurate
- Treating learners as beginners by default
- Exclamation marks in product descriptions
Audio: Measured and unhurried. Minimal, ambient. No upbeat corporate music.
Pronunciation: べんきょうBox — "benkyō box", with the long ō and equal stress on both words
Visual
Colours
Colour scheme: dark-first
Typography
heading: system-ui
body: system-ui
mono: monospace
note: System fonts only. Japanese renders via the OS Japanese stack — no custom web fonts.
Logo
primary: https://getbenkyobox.com/f/benkyobox-w512.png
Spacing
philosophy: Generous whitespace; layouts breathe.
base_unit: 4px
Dark Mode
preferred: true
note: Dark is the only presentation. The website has no light-mode treatment.
Values
Respect the learner — Tools answer questions, they do not patronise. Beginners and advanced users see the same data — only the surfacing changes.
Show the working — Translations, lookups, and breakdowns expose the steps so users learn from them, not just consume an answer.
Fast, local, offline — Core lookups and saved translations work without a network. Data lives on the user's device by default.
No tracking — The app collects no analytics or behavioural data. Email is opt-in for release news only.
Boundaries
Presentation
- Do not present べんきょうBox as a substitute for a teacher or a JLPT pass guarantee
- Do not imply translations are always perfect — Japanese has ambiguity that tools cannot resolve unaided
- Always preserve furigana and original kanji when displaying Japanese alongside English
Context
- Do not associate the product with surveillance, scraping, or covert use of others' content
- Do not present alongside MLM-style language-learning programs
Competitive
- Comparisons with other Japanese learning apps are fine when claims are accurate
- Do not fabricate features or claim parity with features the app does not have
Legal
- Product claims must be verifiable from getbenkyobox.com
- Do not state or imply endorsement, partnership, or affiliation with Apple, Google, or any platform vendor
- JLPT is a registered trademark of the Japan Foundation; reference levels (N5–N1) descriptively, never as if owned or endorsed
- Dictionary and kanji data is licensed from third parties; do not redistribute or imply original authorship of others' lexical data