Konbini Culture

Fluorescent lifeline. Rice balls. Always open.

Convenience stores in Japan are easy to flatten into tourist content. You’ve seen the reels: wide-eyed travellers losing it over egg sandwiches, canned coffee, and toilets that do too much. But that version is missing the bigger picture.

Because the real magic of the konbini isn’t novelty - it’s function.
And consistency.
And this quiet, national agreement that if everything else falls apart, the convenience store won’t.

Step through those sliding doors and it’s like entering a capsule of calm. Same lighting. Same jingle. Same perfectly arranged shelves.

It could be 6am or 2am - doesn’t matter. Inside it’s always the same temperature. The same layout. The same unspoken order.

There’s comfort in that.
In a country where things move fast, the konbini offers pause. A small reset. Somewhere to grab a highball, top up your travel card, send a fax, or just remember what day it is.

The Staff

They’re not here to oversell it.
They won’t ask how your day’s going.

They’re just doing the job well, which, in its own way, is kind of beautiful. The same rhythm, the same tone, the same transaction done with quiet precision.

If you've ever needed something sorted at an odd hour - a lost charger, a printed form, a band-aid, a coffee, or a moment to breathe - you know the staff aren’t just working behind a counter.
They’re keeping the whole thing moving.

Uniforms, design systems, and the one that missed the memo

Each konbini brand has its own strict visual code.
Family Mart gives you cool blue, soft green, and sterile white.
Lawson leans navy with a splash of pink. 
7-Eleven? Loud, nostalgic, slightly unhinged.

And then there’s Mini Stop — the awkward cousin. A logo that looks like clip art. Warm food that’s never quite warm. A faint smell of forgotten mop water. Nobody’s quite sure how they’re still around, but they are. Out of habit. Or mercy.

But the rest? Surprisingly elegant.

The way each store is laid out. The muted colours. The repetitive structure. It starts to blend into your daily life, until the Family Mart palette becomes as familiar as your local train station or that one vending machine on the corner.

You even start seeing the uniforms outside the store — repurposed into streetwear. Worn by punks, skaters, students. Not ironically. Just... naturally. Like part of the landscape.

So yeah - we wrapped a snowboard in it

Our first product - the Jokes Aside Snowboard Sleeve - has bootlegged the colour language of Family Mart.

Why?
Because to us, that palette isn’t just branding but a promise that whatever time it is, wherever you are, whatever your problems, you can probably sort it at a konbini.

Famima is practical. Durable. Familiar.
So it made sense to match it to something equally dependable.

It’s where your printer breaks at 4pm and you still manage to send your visa forms. It’s where the kid behind the counter recognises you by your coffee choice, but still requires your confirmation on no sugar or milk each time.
It’s where the lights are always on, even when everything else feels a bit dark.

At Jokes Aside, we wanted our first release to reflect the stuff that actually matters — the unglamorous, everyday systems that keep life running.
And in Japan, nothing does that better than a Family Mart.

Shop Now - Konbini Culture Snowboard Sleeve