About
Base Saigon
is where Vietnamese brands learn to travel
Founded as Rice by Chí-An De Leo and Joshua Breidenbach in Ho Chi Minh City in 2011, before the market was ready and before the rules were written, Base Saigon was built on the belief that design and storytelling can help Vietnamese brands define themselves and move through the world. Today, in a country accelerating in real time and anchoring the network in Asia, the studio — based in a modernist 1960s house in central Saigon — positions local brands globally and global brands locally with cultural precision. Base Saigon shapes brands including Marou Chocolate, Pizza 4P’s, UNICEF Vietnam, Uniqlo, Uber and Baemin, and, beyond client work, its team of thirty creatives invests in design education, local events and publishing. Not as a side project, but as a responsibility.
Meet the basers
Mai grew up in Cam Ranh, on Vietnam's south central coast in Khánh Hòa Province, close enough to the sea to hear the waves from home. The calm of it stayed with her, which she still seeks out at dawn, up before the city finds its noise.
She was a curious child who asked how everything worked, and an orderly one who needed her days neat and her things in their place. As Studio Assistant at BaseSGN, she runs both instincts at once. She supports every team and clears their path so each one can focus on what it does best. Much of what she does happens quietly, and its effect is everywhere.
Off the clock she bakes, mostly from videos, and Paparoti is one of her favourites to make. She never tires of arranging flowers, a habit picked up watching her mother. Or maybe it was always in the name: Mai, a flower she grew into.
