Yen Wee: Giving Singapore Typography an Identity of Its Own
Yen Wee, designer at Forsman & Bodenfors Singapore, has an insatiable passion for great design. After taking a type design class at university, she was inspired to start Death of Typography, a collective along with two friends, Sylvia Low and Qiu Wen, to celebrate Singaporean typography and provide resources for young designers.
In fact, her love of type design is what actually drew her to apply to work with F&B. “When I was looking for an agency job fresh out of school, F&B was at the top of my wishlist. Not only because of the great work they do but primarily because they were one of the only agencies in Singapore with a GORGEOUS custom brand typeface. The type nerd in me could not resist the allure of a beautiful font – I sent in my job application as soon as I was able. In an indirect way, Death of Typography helped me get this job.”
In this interview with LBB’s Sunna Coleman, Yen shares her enthusiasm for type design, discusses the rise of multilingual typeface and selects her favourite font for 2025.
LBB> Firstly, can you tell us about your design background and passion for typography? When did you discover your love for it?
Yen> I studied visual communication at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) School of Art, Design & Media (ADM) and graduated in 2022. During my student years, I looked up to many Asian graphic designers and loved to flip through their typography books for inspiration. Along the way, I came to love the craft of typography and type design itself.
LBB> And what was it that led you to found Death of Typography? What was the moment that pushed you into wanting to start this collective?
Yen> During my third year in school, I took a type design class with two friends (my fellow co-founders, Sylvia and Qiu Wen) where our mentor pushed us to pursue type design.
However, as we looked at the local design scene for guidance, we realised that there were very few type design resources accessible to young designers. So we decided to start a type design collective and type foundry to fill this gap. In hindsight, that was pretty ballsy since we had no experience in type design nor in running a type foundry. But three years and a few typefaces later, and with one of our members (Qiu Wen) becoming a fully fledged type designer, Death of Typography (DOT) is in a really good place now!
I’m proud that we have grown to be able to fill the gap that we experienced at the start of our formation. We’ve been mentoring several designers, teaching them type design as well as incubating their own typefaces to be developed for commercial release. One of our mentees, Yun Xuan, will be publishing her first typeface with our foundry very soon!
Death of Typography founders
LBB> You were recently invited to curate an exhibition in Singapore that showcases the diversity of typography from different cultures. What would you say are the common elements of Singaporean typography?
Yen> Okay, get ready for a really complicated answer! When we first started DOT, we tried defining ‘Singaporean typography’ but quickly realised how difficult it was to define. In general, design in Singapore tends to follow a multitude of international influences but with no strong local trend of its own. On the surface, our conclusion is a bit of a non-answer: Singaporean typography is typography that happens in Singapore.
Type By Muse Exhibition
For example, let's look at one of our projects, Straits Sans. It is a type family that pays homage to Singapore’s typographic history. Straits Sans is a ‘revival’ of an Art Deco-style typeface used in the 1930s to print one of Singapore’s first local publications, the Straits Times Annual. In our research, we realised that the origin of typography in Singapore stemmed from beyond our shores. Art Deco-style fonts originated from the US and Europe and were often used in print when Singapore was still developing. So as a whole, typography in Singapore is not particularly unique. However, when you look at the way we draw inspiration from outside sources and put our own spin to it, you begin to see the parallels with Singapore’s well-known ‘rojak’ culture, where our culture is largely influenced by outside sources and yet we still make it uniquely ours by putting our own spin on it – a true melting pot.
Straits Sans
This is why I appreciate hearing unique perspectives from Singaporean designers creating typography/type design and seeing how their perspectives reflect in their work. There are many promising young designers creating great work, some of whom we invited to participate in our recent multilingual typography poster exhibition. My personal favourite is Fatih Rosli. He exhibited a gorgeous poster, mixing Urdu and Malay poetry in Arabic typography as an earnest love letter to his Pakistani-Singaporean Malay heritage.
Fatih Rosli poster
LBB> What’s the design and typography landscape currently like in Singapore?
Yen> The typography scene is still new but very exciting. We collaborated with local designer Sylvester Tan to refresh his typeface, Getai Grotesk, which is inspired by local Getai culture (live stage performances typically held during the Chinese Ghost Festival). His project is thoughtful, personal, and one-of-a-kind! Getai Grotesk was also used in the event branding of Singapore Design Week for two years, so it definitely became a full-circle moment for us.
Getai Grotesk
LBB> How does your work with Death of Typography feed into your work as a designer at Forsman & Bodenfors?
Yen> Being in a three-person collective, I'm used to close collaboration. Similarly, at F&B, there’s this same synergy that makes it so easy to be creative, and there’s the same hunger to create work we are really proud of. In fact, I worry sometimes that the camaraderie comes too easily – mainly because I constantly yap my head off to our GCDs during (and long after) creative sessions.
On a more technical level, my work with DOT helps me understand how fonts are crafted and the different intricacies of multilingual scripts. A well-made typeface is an undervalued but integral aspect of creating a scalable, functional, and impactful brand identity. It helps to create design work that functions across all languages for all regions. More brands are starting to recognise the value of a custom brand typeface in branding and I'm proud to say that our design arm F&B Happy has a great type design portfolio!
LBB> Running a collective outside of work takes a lot of dedication. What drives you and how do you stay motivated?
Yen> We started out DOT as good friends and just to be clear – we still are! Every other weekend, we meet for an entire afternoon to work on DOT (and also to yap over brunch). Our friendship constantly drives us to keep the meetings fun and motivated. As for me, I love working on the projects we do at DOT and seeing the impact we make on the local scene. Lots more to come!
LBB> If you had to label 2024 as a typeface, which would you choose and why?
Yen> 2024 was such a crazy but fun year for me, so I’ll choose a crazy but fun typeface. Ozik by Erik Marinovich is my pick.
LBB> And what’s your favourite typeface going into 2025?
Yen> Picking one typeface is too hard. I’ll pick my (current) favourite type foundry: Universal Thirst. They are a type foundry that specialises in Indic and Latin scripts. I believe that as the world becomes more interconnected and digital, multilingual fonts are vital in ensuring that what we design becomes accessible to everyone. That aside, I love their research into Indian type design history as well, makes for a good read!
LBB> What are your aspirations for next year?
Yen> Travel more. See more design in different parts of the world and talk to more designers.
LBB> What final thought would you like to leave us with?
Yen> You can only do so much by yourself. Shout out to Sylvia, Qiu Wen and my lovely agency!
