Karnak

Karnak, a design practice

An obelisk in Egypt, framed by a carved column and a ruined temple wall.

Egypt
Hong Kong

The Bank of China Tower between office towers in Central, Hong Kong.

What we hold to

Sacred, in what you see.

Rational, in how it is made.

Everything is drawn to a system.

Hong Kong, from above.

The Pantheon, Rome.

A spiral car park, looking up.

A rose window, Paris.

Work

01SHOT ON

A concept website for Hasselblad that puts the photographs its cameras made on the Moon first and arrives at the X2D II 100C through them.

Hasselblad. Concept, 2026
Website, interaction, art direction, motion

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02RIMOWA

A brand site concept that tells RIMOWA through its grooves alone, from a 1919 airliner to the cases of today.

RIMOWA. Concept, 2026
Website, interaction, art direction, motion, out of home

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03TEMPLUM Nº 01

A website in four books of photography, from the ground to the sky, in which every photograph arrives cut into strips.

Templum. Self-initiated, 2026
Website, interaction, art direction, motion

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04Saridis

A concept identity, website and shop for Saridis of Athens, the workshop that has made T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings’ Klismos furniture since 1961.

Saridis of Athens. Concept, 2026
Identity, website, e-commerce, art direction

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05KMSWERK

Brand identity, website and product interface for KMSWERK, a research tool that scores a product’s design and its market separately.

KMSWERK. Commission, 2026
Identity, website, product interface, motion, out of home

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06MakeBook

A pre-order and settlement platform built on Injective, where buyers pay into escrow and a run goes ahead only if its minimum is met.

MakeBook. Founded, 2026
Product design, identity, website, motion

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07Walapay

A website concept for Walapay, the payments company that moves money as USDC and pays it out on each country’s own rail, written in each country’s own way of writing money.

Walapay. Concept, 2026
Website, 3D, art direction, motion

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The Oculus, New York: ribs converging on a skylight

A space cut out by lines.

PracticeOne idea each

Templum Nº 01. Four books, from the ground to the sky.Salk Institute, Louis Kahn, 1965 · Photo Adam Bignell

TEMPLUM Nº 01templum.space

A chair with a curved back and four curved legs. Athenians painted it on their pottery and carved it on their graves for more than a century.

Klismos painted inside a drinking cup by Douris
c. 475 BCDrinking cup, Douris. Met 52.11.4
Klismos on an oil flask, woman with a lyre
c. 465 BCOil flask, Painter of Oxford 1920. Met 06.1129
Klismos on a lidded box
c. 460 BCLidded box. Met 06.1117
Klismos on an oil flask by the Carlsruhe Painter
475–450 BCOil flask, Carlsruhe Painter. Met 41.162.145
Klismos on a water jar by the Shuvalov Painter
c. 430 BCWater jar, Shuvalov Painter. Met 1984.11.1
Klismos carved on the grave stele of Hegeso
410–400 BCGrave stele of Hegeso. National Archaeological Museum, Athens, 3624
Klismos carved almost in the round on a stele fragment
400–375 BCGrave stele of a woman, fragments. Met 52.11.3
Klismos on a grave stele of a woman
375–350 BCGrave stele of a woman. Met 65.11.11
Klismos on a family grave stele
375–350 BCGrave stele of a man. Met 59.11.27
The Hegeso stele photographed in the Kerameikos in the 1880s
1880sHegeso, photographed where it was found. W.J. Stillman. Met 2005.100.1313
Klismos chair in olive wood, Saridis of Athens
1961Klismos Nº 3, olive wood. Saridis of Athens

Saridis of Athenssaridis-concept.vercel.app

SHOT ON

SHOT ONshot-on.vercel.app

Leica M3, 1954. Design 77, market 44.

7744 Average design, sells wellGood design, sells wellPoor design, sells poorlyGood design, sells poorly DesignMarketLeica M3 77 ≠ 44Motorola Razr V3 77 ≠ 78Rubik’s Cube 79 ≠ 89Google Glass 63 ≠ 45Egg Chair 78 ≠ —

KMSWERKkmswerk.com

29 July 1920: a mail bag is handed into the corrugated aluminium cabin of a Junkers F 13
The grooved aluminium of a RIMOWA case, with its corner cap and rivets, in window light

Die Koffermit den Rillen

The luggage with the grooves.

29 July 1920Mail is handed into a Junkers-Larsen JL-6, the American F 13, for a coast-to-coast pathfinding flight.Smithsonian National Postal Museum

1950

RIMOWA pressed the airliner’s grooves into an aluminium suitcase.

The ridges stiffen thin metal without adding weight: what let a 1919 airliner be built of aluminium lets a suitcase be carried.

RIMOWArimowa-concept.vercel.app

Film, 2026.Buyers pay into escrow. A run goes ahead only when its minimum is met.

MakeBookmakebook.xyz

Global payments
on local terms.

One payment of 2,500.00 USDC, written as it lands: R$ 13.525,00 in São Paulo, ₹2,20,500.00 in Mumbai, रू ३,५२,५००.०० in Kathmandu.

Walapaywalapay-concept.vercel.app

Thinking

  1. Read
  2. Read
  3. Read
  4. Read

A handsome page now costs a sentence. The question is whether anyone else could have made it by lunchtime.

Cento misure e un taglio solo. A hundred measurements, and one cut.

We say which is which, on every page. Concepts are concepts; commissions are commissions.

A written brief forces the question most calls exist to avoid: what, exactly, do you want?

The name

Karnak, Luxor

Ram-headed sphinxes in a row, before a colonnade.
The great hypostyle hall: 134 columns in sixteen rows.
On the columns, cartouches: each oval holds a king’s name.
Where the roof has gone, the light comes down between the columns.
Papyrus capitals, against the sky of Luxor.
At the scale of one person.

Karnak was built over some two thousand years, by about thirty pharaohs, each adding to what the last had left.

01Ram-headed sphinxes in a row, before a colonnade.

02The great hypostyle hall: 134 columns in sixteen rows.

03On the columns, cartouches: each oval holds a king’s name.

04Where the roof has gone, the light comes down between the columns.

05Papyrus capitals, against the sky of Luxor.

06At the scale of one person.

We took its name for that. An identity, a website, a product: each is drawn so that the people who come after us can keep building on it without breaking it.

Alan Yang, in black and white.

Principal

Alan Yang

Founder and principal of Karnak, a design practice where every commission answers to a single idea.

Practice
Identity, websites, product interfaces, art direction, motion.
Recent
KMSWERK, with its team. Walapay.
Also
Founder and CEO of MakeBook. First prize, Injective track, AdventureX 2026.
Approach
Beauty held to the standard of an instrument: exact, quiet, built to last.
Works
By correspondence, in English or Chinese.
Central, Hong Kong: Queensway between office towers, the Bank of China Tower at the top left.

Office

The time in Hong Kong:

Central, Hong Kong

Unit 2904, 29/F, Universal Trade Centre, 3 Arbuthnot Road, Central, Hong Kong

Correspondence

We are a brand, and we need a website this quarter.

Change the underlined words.

Opens your own mail, addressed to [email protected]. Nothing is sent from this page.