Our job is to design a Chinese Baijiu Bar for the young and fashionable. Chinese baijiu, a strong distilled spirit, is perceived to be for an older demographic, dated, boring and old fashioned. This is an exciting opportunity to reinvent the category, in terms of how chinese cultural elements can be interpreted in a fresh manner, yet respectful of its historical context. The name En Vain, French for ‘in vain’, is a direct reference to this playful attitude of how to interpret culture.

Lin Wei is a Singaporean designer based in Beijing, China. After a varied career crossing Branding, Advertising and Events industries, he started cross-disciplinary design studio United Design Practice, with a mission to solve problems using design, regardless of discipline, scale, or culture. At the crossroads of art/design, technology, and business, he consults for clients from the likes of Greenpeace, Pepsi, Mercedes, to State Owned Enterprises like OE Broadband, and for trending tech startups like Xiao Niu and CeCe. In his spare time, he writes stories, curates art exhibitions, and hatches crazy ideas that might still see the light of day.

En Vain is a brand whose mission is to reinvent traditional chinese cuisine and drinking experience. Starting with this Baijiu Bar, they promise to bring to chinese consumers an F&B experience at once chic, fashionable, accessible, yet inspired by traditional culture that is currently viewed upon as staid, boring, and irrelevant.