Maya Chen — profile portrait in soft side light

Independent Designer & Art Director

Quiet design
for loud ideas.

I help founders and cultural institutions shape brands that feel inevitable — not invented. Fifteen years between studios in Taipei, Berlin, and New York, now working from a small office near the river.

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I believe restraint is the most generous thing a designer can offer.

My work lives in the space between editorial design and brand systems. I've shaped identities for a Kyoto tea house, a Brooklyn natural-wine bar, and most recently a government-funded arts fellowship in Kaohsiung.

Before going independent in 2019, I spent six years at Pentagram Berlin and three at Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai. I take on roughly eight projects a year — enough to care deeply about each one.

15 Years in practice
80+ Identities designed
3 Cities called home
02 — Selected Work
2024 Identity system

Kaohsiung Arts Fellowship

A full visual identity for a city-funded program supporting twelve emerging artists across southern Taiwan.

2023 Packaging & print

Slowburn Natural Wine

Label design and editorial catalogue for a Brooklyn winery working with low-intervention growers in the Finger Lakes.

2022 Wayfinding

Hanazono Tea House

Environmental graphics and menu design for a third-generation tea house in the Gion district of Kyoto.

2021 Editorial

Taipei Design Week — Catalogue

A 180-page printed catalogue documenting the 2021 edition, featuring interviews with forty-two designers across Asia.

Currently booking projects
for autumn 2026.