Our mission with the relaunching of SOLITAIRE, Singapore’s leading luxe magazine catering to the high end jewelry business, was to create an image for the brand that is as sophisticated and fashion forward as the brilliant jewelry it showcases. I love Singapore. A two-day briefing revealed that SOLITAIRE had been published for eight years, and had fallen into some bad habits: like stock photography on the covers and over embellishment in type and layout. Our first job was to explain the importance of visual branding: with imagery, as well as typography.
IMAGERY
It was crucial that we work with photographers to shoot our covers and fashion photography who would understand the lush, rich, modern feeling that we wanted to convey.
For the last eight years, SOLITAIRE had occasionally been showcasing stock photography on its cover, as seen here in our “before” cover. We insisted on shooting all covers and fashion in the future and stressed the importance of building relationships with young, fashion conscious photographers. We are shooting these stories in HongKong, as well as Singapore. HongKong has a fantastic pool of talent and models available and we’re building a strong photo base there. The first few covers were shot by Davide Butson-Fiori, the creative director of Global Brands for Edipresse Asia, a wonderful photographer who “got” our mission (and who also understood the importance of the model choice!)
CUSTOM TYPOGRAPHY
Ahhhh, remember the days of $100,000 custom typography jobs? Well, those days seem to be over… but you can work around that by developing relationships with leading typographers.
For Solitaire, we contacted Joshua Darden. Joshua has worked with us on many jobs, both domestically and globally.
Joshua had been developing the gorgeous Gardener font. He teased me with the italic cut. I jumped on its possibilities and we decided to develop it together. I am not taking credit for this beautiful, elegant font – but rather, we encouraged him to complete it, and requested some fixes.
This font, Gardener Display in it’s many cuts, immediately gave the brand the distinctness we needed. It’s elegant, sophisticated – and with it’s peculiar slant – it dictated the angled boxes that we used through out the design.
We have a six month exclusivity with Josh for Gardener. Until then…no one else has this typographic branding.
After a “tweaking” of the logo, and intense work on the navigation and organization of the book, we were ready to launch.
THE LAUNCH
Working globally has its’ challenges – but we have been specializing in launches around the world for over seven years now. We have a team we work with consistently and a methodology in place.
After we completed detailed templates, we flew out brilliant Design Lieutenant: Ariel Cepeda, to Singapore. Ariel has worked with us for over twelve years on a number of launches: BusinessWeek, Tatler Asia, and now Solitaire. He was able to work with the team, explain the content shifts and design, and help launch the first issue. It is very important that the art and edit team feel an ownership to the new look – and Ariel’s job was to support that shift.
WORKING GLOBALLY
The key to success in global work is developing relationships within the country you are working. The obvious reasons are: understanding the culture, understanding how each client works, and of course, understanding your mission from an insider’s point of view.
What is also crucial: finding and supporting local talent. You need a crew who can continue the look, “own” the brand that we’ve all created – and, hopefully, push it further.
With SOLITAIRE, we worked with Davide Butson-Fiori, who we launched Tatler Asia with. Davide has been a creative fixture in Asia now for the past ten years, and has helped us find and sustain local talent. With the editor in chief, Julia Goh, SOLITAIRE hired a talented, young Art Director and, with this terrific team in place, we will continue as consultants for the next few issues. Like Tatler Asia, we expect each one to “best” the one before it!
The rebranding of Solitaire
Our mission with the relaunching of SOLITAIRE, Singapore’s leading luxe magazine catering to the high end jewelry business, was to create an image for the brand that is as sophisticated and fashion forward as the brilliant jewelry it showcases. I love Singapore. A two-day briefing revealed that SOLITAIRE had been published for eight years, and had fallen into some bad habits: like stock photography on the covers and over embellishment in type and layout. Our first job was to explain the importance of visual branding: with imagery, as well as typography.
IMAGERY
It was crucial that we work with photographers to shoot our covers and fashion photography who would understand the lush, rich, modern feeling that we wanted to convey.
For the last eight years, SOLITAIRE had occasionally been showcasing stock photography on its cover, as seen here in our “before” cover. We insisted on shooting all covers and fashion in the future and stressed the importance of building relationships with young, fashion conscious photographers. We are shooting these stories in HongKong, as well as Singapore. HongKong has a fantastic pool of talent and models available and we’re building a strong photo base there. The first few covers were shot by Davide Butson-Fiori, the creative director of Global Brands for Edipresse Asia, a wonderful photographer who “got” our mission (and who also understood the importance of the model choice!)
CUSTOM TYPOGRAPHY
Ahhhh, remember the days of $100,000 custom typography jobs? Well, those days seem to be over… but you can work around that by developing relationships with leading typographers.
For Solitaire, we contacted Joshua Darden. Joshua has worked with us on many jobs, both domestically and globally.
Joshua had been developing the gorgeous Gardener font. He teased me with the italic cut. I jumped on its possibilities and we decided to develop it together. I am not taking credit for this beautiful, elegant font – but rather, we encouraged him to complete it, and requested some fixes.
This font, Gardener Display in it’s many cuts, immediately gave the brand the distinctness we needed. It’s elegant, sophisticated – and with it’s peculiar slant – it dictated the angled boxes that we used through out the design.
We have a six month exclusivity with Josh for Gardener. Until then…no one else has this typographic branding.
After a “tweaking” of the logo, and intense work on the navigation and organization of the book, we were ready to launch.
THE LAUNCH
Working globally has its’ challenges – but we have been specializing in launches around the world for over seven years now. We have a team we work with consistently and a methodology in place.
After we completed detailed templates, we flew out brilliant Design Lieutenant: Ariel Cepeda, to Singapore. Ariel has worked with us for over twelve years on a number of launches: BusinessWeek, Tatler Asia, and now Solitaire. He was able to work with the team, explain the content shifts and design, and help launch the first issue. It is very important that the art and edit team feel an ownership to the new look – and Ariel’s job was to support that shift.
WORKING GLOBALLY
The key to success in global work is developing relationships within the country you are working. The obvious reasons are: understanding the culture, understanding how each client works, and of course, understanding your mission from an insider’s point of view.
What is also crucial: finding and supporting local talent. You need a crew who can continue the look, “own” the brand that we’ve all created – and, hopefully, push it further.
With SOLITAIRE, we worked with Davide Butson-Fiori, who we launched Tatler Asia with. Davide has been a creative fixture in Asia now for the past ten years, and has helped us find and sustain local talent. With the editor in chief, Julia Goh, SOLITAIRE hired a talented, young Art Director and, with this terrific team in place, we will continue as consultants for the next few issues. Like Tatler Asia, we expect each one to “best” the one before it!