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Images courtesy of Werk

Singapore-based designer Theseus Chan looks at projects as opportunities to think in conceptual fashion, beyond the usual approach of commercially-charged inventiveness.

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Photo by Clang

Though his art direction and design for clients such as Tangs (a well-known department store on Singapore’s Orchard Rd.) and Club 21 (a fashion distributor) have won accolades from the advertising and design worlds, it is the stuff he does on his experimental publication WERK that truly sets him apart.

WERK is a visual and visceral exploration into a single idea. In issue 5, themed “Open Wound,” the cover has a physical gash through it. Issue 6, themed “Darkness,” has an image of Sophie Dahl bathed in unnaturally bright light. Flip through the pages, and one immediately notices the minimal use of explanatory copy. The publication’s nucleus is a sequence of images and typographic treatments, sometimes bombastic but always experimental, in the quest to give tangible form to an idea. He is helped by many collaborators, most notably close friend and renowned photographer Clang, Comme Des Garçons, and Paris’ store of creative finds on style, design, art, and food, Colette.

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“The notations of perfect imperfections are what we strive for to achieve uniqueness,” says Chan. Looking over the past 13 issues of WERK, he and his team of designers have experimented with an impressive range of unconventional print production techniques in order to achieve this desired imperfect perfectness—from fluorescent spray-painting (issue 11) to sandpapering the edges of the magazine (issue 10) to hand-tearing pages (issue 10). With each issue so intensely crafted, it’s no wonder that they only produce an average of 400 copies per issue.

With six years of award-winning WERK under his belt, Chan is not content to rest on his laurels. When asked which of his 13 issues is his favorite, he says “I think the best one is yet to come.”

Werk is sold in exclusive boutiques such as Colette in Paris and St. Mark’s Books in New York City.