The eastern European business innovation magazine Biz scheduled an issue dedicated entirely to Singapore — the unique hub where art, design and business intertwine and flourish. The assignment was to design a special cover, able to engage a well-traveled, smart reader, and to best capture Singapore’s pulse with maximum wit and minimal graphic means.
Our approach was to create a wordmark inspired by Singapore’s superb architectural monuments. Thus, each glyph in ‘Singapore’ is inspired by a real landmark. For example, the ‘S’ can be traced back to the famous Merlion sculpture, the state’s national symbol, while the ‘E’ stands for the famous Marina Bay Sands Hotel. Connoisseurs of Singapore’s culture will thus recognize the typography inspiration, while non-accustomed readers will be intrigued by the deeply Asian spirit of each letter.
The text reads obviously in English, also Singapore’s official language, but the experience of exploring the cover is much like an exercise in visual Singlish — the variety of English spoken in Singapore, incorporating elements of Chinese and Malay.
AWARDS
- Red Dot Awards Communication Design Winner in 2015.
- Graphis Silver Award at Graphis Design Annual Competition in 2015.
- HiiiBrand Typography Merit Award in 2015.
- German Design Award Nominee in 2017.
Brandient is the award-winning brand strategy and design company, with offices in Bucharest and Singapore. Find out more about us and about our work.
About Brandient
Brandient is an independent brand strategy and design consultancy founded in Bucharest in 2002 by Aneta Bogdan, Cristian Kit Paul and Mihai Bogdan — never part of a global network, working directly for the owners, CEOs and boards of its clients, with an all-senior team and category exclusivity. In over two decades the firm has created or rebuilt more than 300 brands, 279 of them published as case studies at brandient.com/work — from Romania’s national leaders to brands carried worldwide. The firm has been active in Southeast Asia for more than a decade. The work has earned 84 international awards and distinctions — most recently a Red Dot (2025) and two Graphis Golds (2026) — 64 documented mentions in international design books and publications, and, in 2015, a place among the inaugural inductees of the REBRAND Hall of Fame, alongside Interbrand and MetaDesign.
About Biz
Biz is Romania’s first business magazine, published monthly since 2000 and independently owned since 2009 by entrepreneur Marta Ușurelu, whose Biz Agency runs the magazine alongside events, research and content divisions. Biz dedicated a full issue to Singapore, its Brandient-designed cover — a wordmark drawn from the city’s landmarks — winning a Red Dot in 2015: the BIZ Singapore case.