Problem
Writing about type is overwhelmingly about Latin. When I went looking for serious work on other writing systems, I found it scattered, academic, and disconnected from how designers actually use type today. I wanted the opposite: one magazine that takes a single writing system at a time and follows it into branding, signage, packaging, screens, and the street.
Process
The hard part was building something that could change completely from issue to issue and still feel like the same magazine. The answer was structure. The visual world resets every issue, but a fixed set of sections doesn't: a field guide to the system, archival print, type found on the street, type under pressure, type on screen, a single-glyph spread, and one long feature. That skeleton is what makes it a series instead of a one-off.
The biggest decision was the masthead. It isn't a fixed logo; it takes on the writing system it's covering, set in Chinese for this issue, Arabic or Japanese for the next, while its position and weight stay put. The title becomes part of each issue rather than a stamp on top of it.
For the Chinese issue I kept the palette tight: black, white, and a warm orange that nods to aged newsprint and ties mixed-source images together without tipping into nostalgia. The type is sharp and editorial, the Latin and Chinese carefully paired, and the Chinese is never there just for decoration.
Outcome
The result is a system, not a single magazine: a fixed editorial framework, an adaptive masthead, and a fully art-directed first issue, with Arabic, Japanese, or Korean editions ready to slot in. Designing one issue turned out to be designing the rules that let every future issue look nothing alike yet still read as the same publication.
