Managing Director & Head of Design, WY-TO Singapore

Yann Follain

Yann Follain is the Founder, Managing Director and Head of Design of WY-TO Group. In 2024, he was recognised by Le French Design as one of the Top 100 Designers and in 2016, one of Europe’s 40 Under 40 emerging young designers by the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design. 

Yann’s multicultural background was built from his formative years in France and Southeast Asia and his experience working on the National Gallery Singapore, at a time of positive growth in the city-state’s contemporary arts and museum scene.

Embracing multidisciplinary approaches for his Singapore practice has established Yann’s substantive expertise in cultural development and museum curation, interpretive planning, and experiential and exhibition design. As a result, he frequently speaks on design strategies relating to immersive cultural journeys, accessibility and inclusivity, regionally. 

Together with his Team, Yann received the Future-Maker Award at the Beijing Global Innovation Conference and an Honourable Mention at the international Red Dot Design Competition in 2016. His festival directorship for the Archifest 2018 (Singapore Architecture Festival) was shortlisted for the 2020 President*s Design Award, Singapore’s highest design accolade. WY-TO also became the first Southeast Asia practice recognised by the global C40 Reinventing Cities competition in 2021, and a recipient of the Good Design Research Grant by DesignSingapore Council to conduct in-depth research on Singapore’s Well-being Framework in 2022.

Yann currently serves as the Singapore Co-chair for the Society of Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD), is one of the 5 curators of ‘Art in Transit’ by Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA), and has been a member of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) since 2017. Previously, he was a member of the Advisory & Commissioning Panel for the
Public Art Trust within the National Arts Council in Singapore.

He received his Master of Architecture degree from one of France’s leading institutions, the National Architecture School of Higher Education of Paris-Belleville in 2005.