Revamp of flagship title, Men's Folio for Heart Media in 2013-2014
Formerly the quintessential, pioneering and premier Singaporean men's fashion title — Men's Folio entered a prolonged bizarre period of lowbrow tackiness, about as much class and flair as an Ah Beng mobile phone shop, with the design direction probably influenced by Michael Bay's 'Transformers'.
For the revamp, all of the predecessor's work was discarded; working closely with the editorial team, we looked at the new fashion meta, the new energies and the zeitgeist of menswear at the time — creating a new framework to house and to best showcase the grandiose, inspiring yet capricious nature of high men's fashion.
Logo was redesigned; juxtaposing a neutral typeface with a futuristic, slightly post-internet aesthetic with the "Men's", as well as assembling a new suite of typefaces to be used in the pages of the magazine (varsity type was also built into its DNA as a nod to the growing influence of sports and streetwear).
One of the innovations applied, was to rework mine and the team's interests in Japanese fashion magazines as well as mainstream, venerable titles like Vogue — to amalgamate the best of both worlds into an opulent, aspirational and exciting visual language. Not only was the visual vernacular a marriage of east-meets-west (not unlike the cultural consumption of Singaporeans), we also sought to fuse the high-end with a gritty, iconoclastic street sensibility. This comes across in its bombast, baroque visual opulence, and attitude — reflecting the current fashion meta, and as well, the flair of the editorial team — creating an inimitable, bravura magazine for the alpha male who rocks Ralph and jams to Kanye.
