Bringing Asia together

Global Asia is a quarterly journal published by the Seoul-based East Asia Foundation, who believe that economic prosperity and trust between nations can be used to promote peace—not only on the Korean Peninsula, but around the region and the world. Article authors include former presidents, high-ranking government ministers and global thought leaders. With stories that aren't afraid to ‘say it like it is’, the journal’s design aesthetic needed to be equally straightforward and engaging. The lack of any real design budget also necessitated thinking creatively about how to illustrate stories with minimum fuss, but maximum effect—which is an apt summary of the overall design ethos.

As is the case with many publication design projects, what starts out as a one-off engagement often becomes an ongoing relationship. In the case of Global Asia, we continued to work closely with managing editor David Plott (who was also instrumental in the creation of The Jakarta Globe newspaper—another project we were involved with), art directing, designing and illustrating the first dozen issues before an appropriate local designer was found.

A unique aspect of the process was the cross-cultural team—with an editor based in Thailand, publisher in Korea, printer in Hong Kong and art director in Australia (not to mention writers from around the globe), there was a lot of cultural paradigm shifting. And we like to think that’s what Global Asia is continuing to do.

Each cover’s illustration was lovingly hand-crafted, bringing each edition’s theme to life in the most engaging way.

No illustration was used lightly—if it didn’t tell a relevant story, we didn’t include it. In many cases the illustrations
also doubled as infographics—not only illustrating the written content, but enriching it as well.

Occasionally there would be opportunity to include photography or a more in-depth illustration or infographic,
which we always jumped at.