On March 26, 2025, Yojiya Group (Shimogyo Ward, Kyoto City), a cosmetics and miscellaneous goods company, announced a new logo that adds a hand mirror design to the brand logo of "Kyoto Beauty Reflected in a Hand Mirror," which has been familiar for over half a century. In addition, they created a new corporate character, "Yojiko," in which the woman used in the previous logo "comes out of a hand mirror."
The Yojiya Group is a long-established company founded in 1904. They manufacture and sell cosmetics and other miscellaneous goods. In the 1990s, oil blotting paper became a big hit as a Kyoto souvenir, and the picture of a woman used on the packaging became established as the brand logo.
On the other hand, they took the hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to "escape from dependence on tourism" and change their management policy to a style that is familiar to local Kyoto and domestic fans. Similarly, in order to completely change the corporate image of "oil blotting paper" and "tourist souvenirs" and to aim to become a "lifestyle brand from Kyoto," they changed their brand logo and created a new character. The brand logo is a simple design with the letters "Yo-jiya" and a silhouette of a hand mirror. The company group also created a new slogan and logo: "Yo-jiya Group: Making Kyoto a place where everyone can be happy."
The new character is "Yojiko," a girl who appears out of the hand mirror, instead of the traditional "woman reflected in the hand mirror." She has similar black eyes to the previous character, but the old-fashioned image has been changed to that of a woman living in modern Kyoto. She wears a pink dress, the company's corporate color, and although she is from Kyoto, she is set to be "not very familiar with Kyoto culture." With the addition of a torso, the character can express a variety of movements, which will be used for social media posts and signs, and merchandise will also be developed. CEO Takashi Kunieda stated, "We want to develop this character into a beloved one, and through Yo-jiko, we want to aim to be a company that is loved by our hometown of Kyoto and our fans for a long time.
" The name of the "woman reflected in the hand mirror," which has been used since 1965, is actually "Yojiko." They plan to continue using it for things like blotting paper packaging in the future, so this is not a "farewell."
