Today I want to share with you a new official designation for apps I make, Kadomaru Shōkai. I’ve been collaborating with Johannes Jakob for a little while now (on a few unreleased apps), but we’re shipping our first one today. Right now.
It’s called Daruma, and it’s a goal-tracking app. It’s super simple. Just add an item, begin working on it by selecting the right eye, complete it by selecting the left eye, and burn all your completed goals whenever you’re ready. The process mimics that of real daruma, which are type of Japanese doll. When purchased, they have blank eyes you fill in just as previously described, and at the end of the year, you burn them wherever you bought them from.
I have a couple real ones myself, and it had me thinking this method is a great way to keep track of things I’m working on. So Johannes and I designed this app for exactly that. It really isn’t that much, but it’s small, useful, and even a little cute. Have a look here:


[Download the video.]

You can download Daruma from the Kadomaru website. It’s—uh, free? We’re not charging for it, and—so far—we don’t have any plans to ship software that isn’t free. If you’re curious about why, please visit our About page.
Of course, you’re free to support Kadomaru through a donation and unlock alternate app icons for Daruma. There might even be secret ones to discover. (??)


One small side note: I’ve moved my two AppleScript utilities Tulip and Bentō to Kadomaru. Both also received extremely minor updates that mainly facilitate that change.

Now, I want to share some things about Kadomaru that might only interest those who love a brand build-out. Yes, I love making a brand. I have a few of my own, like Parakeet for icons with Luka, Crown for fonts with Ender, and Junior for playing cards. So, Kadomaru is for apps with Johannes.
For its name, Johannes proposed something about “shipping,” which I really liked as evidenced by going that route with Pacific Helm more than 10 years ago now. I was thinking how boats in Japan often end in 丸 (maru, circle) and tried to find a word I liked that made sense for us. After stumbling around, I found 角丸 (kadomaru, rounded corner).
As you may know, I really love 家紋 (kamon, family crests). When thinking about what a modern Kadomaru mon would be, I drew a rounded square inside a circle, which allows the mon to be synonymously read as Kadomaru. Of course, it is also intentionally a reference to the original iPhone home button.
I chose 紫 (murasaki, purple) as its one of Japan’s most traditional colors. I modified an upcoming Crown font for the English wordmark, and in less than a few hours, this whole thing went from nothing to something.


As we wrapped up Daruma, I figured now would be a great time for me to finally draw a disk image icon, because in all my years drawing icons, I may have never done that before. I made a cute cardboard box, with purple patterned tape and a few shipping glyphs I made years ago for an unused Junior Hanafuda shipment box. And then I had a better idea: what if it was wrapped in 風呂敷 (furoshiki, wrapping cloth) instead. Except now I needed to enlist Luka. And the result? Well, it speaks for itself. Thank you as always, Luka.

But it doesn’t really end there, does it? Because if that’s what it looks like on the outside, what does it look like on the inside? Shouldn’t this extend to the background image inside the disk image? You bet. Download Daruma to see it!

Just as Magic Passport is kind of an excuse for me to draw icons, in a way, some of this is just an excuse to draw these kinds of things too. “I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares.”
We’re gonna ship apps. They’re probably not going to be big. They’re not going to be perfect. But it’s better to share them than not.
And on that note, here are a few related links.

Kadomaru website
Kadomaru RSS feed
Kadomaru wallpapers
Kadomaru t-shirt

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