just rambling

Singapore Design: Asian or Western?

It was a gathering of editors from design magazines around Asia — Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore — but while the other editors spoke about their country’s respective design scene in Chinese, I was only comfortable to do mine in English and had to depend on a translator.

This odd situation at the Kaohsiung Design Festival’s Editor — Chief Editor’s Forum left me wondering if Singapore Design is “Asian” or “Western”?

Historically, design came to Singapore from the West. The earliest design studios were started by expatriates from UK, Australia and New Zealand and later, Singaporeans schooled in Western design schools. The choice of English as the country’s working language has also made Western design more relevant to us as opposed to that from Asia, which comes in a variety of languages.

Moreover, the concept of Asian in Singapore has also been associated with ‘tradition’. One reason we are taught an Asian mother tongue is so that we do not lose our cultural bearings. But other than that, the development of this country has always been oriented towards the West, which is seen as both economically powerful and culturally influential. In these conditions, “Asian” in Singapore is seen as historical and backward, which creates a further distance between young Singaporean designers and Asia.

However, the rise in China in recent years and the near future may change this. The editors from Taiwan and Hong Kong lamented how many of their best designers have flocked there to practice their design because that’s where the business is. It’ll be interesting to see how Singapore designers react to this, especially since the Singapore government has been very supportive of businesses here to chase the Chinese market.

When asked at the forum about what I thought of design in Asia, my view (in English) was that Singapore designers did not look towards Asia, with the exception of Japan and maybe, Hong Kong. But then again, it’s because these two territories, especially Japan, have received a kind of ‘international’ recognition. I cited language as a major barrier to our understanding of Asian design. Though Singaporeans are bilingual, our primary language is English. More importantly, I didn’t think Singapore designers bothered about this question of their design being “Asian”, “Western” or even “Singaporean” — nationalism or regionalism was irrelevant in a Singapore that wants to be a “global city”. What mattered to design studios today is that they had their own voice in their work.

Surprisingly, the speaker from Taiwan’s Shopping Design, Chan Wei-Hsiung, echoed similar sentiments. Here was a veteran creative director, double most our ages, exhorting Taiwanese designers to globalise so as to bring their conversations outside of Taiwan. He also felt that the future of design was all about individual choices and styles.

The trip up to Taiwan has opened my mind and eyes to designers in Asia and I’m curious if they do have something to offer to the global stage. For one, I realised Taiwan is a good place to learn about Japanese design because while I don’t understand Japanese, I can get access to their writings and works translated to Chinese. For now, I’ve cobbled together a few links related to Asian design below. Let me know if you have more!

• Where You Going? A duo trying to find design in Southeast Asia
• art4D A design magazine based in Thailand
• Cutout Magazine A Malaysian design magazine
• Malaysian Design Archive A repository of old Malaysian design
• PPaper A Taiwan design magazine created to introduce design to the masses. Sold in 7-11s!
• Shopping Design Another Taiwanese magazine that looks at design in everyday life
• Aaron Nieh Contemporary Taiwanese designer
• 號外 (Hao Wai) A Hong Kong cultural and lifestyle magazine that has been around since 1976
• Kohei Sugiura A veteran Japanese designer who has been thinking about Asian design
• Sulki & Min A contemporary Korean design duo

The Singapore Designer Today: Explained

Last week, I was at the Kaohsiung Design Festival explaining to Taiwanese what I saw Singapore design as today. Here’s a detailed explanation of the slide that sums up my views:

This is how a Singapore designer looks like today. In the past, a designer used to just be a worker for ‘Business’. Before the 1990s, there was no such thing as ‘Singapore culture’ because the government and country was too busy chasing economic success and neglected cultural development. Instead, Singapore designers looked to the West, the birthplace of design, and often put it on a pedestal. The concept of ‘Global Cities’ also did not exist before the Internet and globalisation. However, since the ’90s, Singapore has gradually developed its own culture, giving Singapore designers a source of inspiration for their designs locally. At the same time, globalisation, the Internet and Singapore’s ambition to be a “Global City” means Singapore designers continue to be influenced by design and culture from all around the world.

This means the Singapore designer today faces three issues:

1. Design Business versus Design Culture: Instead of only working for business clients, designers also see themselves as culture creators. They willingly initiate own projects that are creative but not necessarily commercial. This is a global trend too.
2. Globalisation and regional expansion: Increasingly, Singapore designers are working for clients in the region because of a growing reputation. Singapore businesses themselves are also oriented towards serving a global market because the local market is too small to survive. This means Singapore designers are always thinking about what the world market needs because of their clientele. Instead of serving the local market exclusively, they produce “international” and “trendy” designs.
3. International before National: This relates to the point above. Many Singapore designers set their sights to be recognised internationally from the very beginning. Very often, this is also the only way you can become well regarded in Singapore. This again influences a kind of global aesthetic so as to make a mark in international competitions like D&AD, The One Show.

———– and in Chinese, thanks to my Taiwanese translator ,Yvonne.

今日設計師現況

圖解如下：

三圓圈的圖形意思分別為商業圈、新加坡文化圈、全球都市圈，三個圓圈交集出一個政策就是「先求國際化/國際化優於本國之前」，而商業圈與文化圈共同畫出「商設與文創」區塊，商業圈與全球都市圈共同畫出「全球設計與區域性設計」或「設計全球化與設計在地化」。

這就是新加坡設計師今日的面貌，在商業之前，設計師往往是個工匠，當下並沒有「新加坡文化」這樣的概念存在，因為國家並不認為文化很重要，換來的就是設計師會朝西方看齊，西方也就是設計的發源地。「全球化都市」的概念也不是在網際網路與全球化/地球村出現之前就存在的，是網路出現後才出現此概念。

然而，過了這五十年之後，新加坡逐漸發展出自己的文化，並且提供了設計師許多在地資源/元素當作靈感來源，於此同時，當全球化以及網際網路加上新加坡的雄心壯志三方因素融合為一個所謂的「全球化都市」的概念時，這意味著新加坡的設計師已經將影響力的觸角伸及世界各地。

這也表示今日的新加坡設計師面臨以下三大議題：

1. 商業設計與文化設計(商設+文創)
   新加坡的設計師不再只是為客戶工作，而是視自己為文化的創造者，他們非常樂意提出很有創意卻未必有商機/商業性需求的企劃案。
2. 全球化與區域擴張(全球化與本土化)
   將設計視為商業的話，許多新加坡設計師願意為在地客戶工作/服務，因為可以幫助提升名聲，又因為國內市場太小，新加坡的商業一向也為國家以外的國際市場服務，這代表新加坡設計師必須思考全世界的市場需求而非只是新加坡境內，而這種現象導致了新加坡設計國際化與當時設計的潮流/趨勢。
3. 國際化先於國家(向外先於向內發展)
   這一點是總括前面所有重點的更大重點，許多新加坡設計師是從一開始就希望尋求國際認同，而也是如此，以這樣的思考進入設計圈的方法往往也是成為新加坡全國知名設計師的唯一方法，這同時也影響/型塑他們在追求的設計樣貌。

The Singapore Designer Today

Here’s a sneak peek into my presentation on Singapore’s design scene and The Design Society Journal at the Kaohsiung Design Festival next week. I’ll be at the Editor — Chief Editor’s Forum with editors from other design magazines in Asia — CUTOUT, 號外, PPAPER, and Shopping Design — to discuss about design in Asia.

Apparently, the forum is already fully booked!

Singapore Institute of Architects Journal in the ’80s

Singapore Architect has been published by the Singapore Institute of Architects since the 1960s and is one of the oldest architecture magazine in the region. It used to be called the SIAJ or Singapore Institute Architects Journal.

I flipped through its old issues a while back and was very captivated by the magazine’s covers. I decided to look through the archives in detail again, and here are even more gems that I discovered. These were the covers of magazines published between 1979-1981

I’m really curious who did these covers! Sounds like a story to chase.

After this phase of graphic covers, the magazine switched to photography on its covers, presumably because the technology allowed it to. It was only in 2008, when Kelley Cheng took over the magazine, did it start using graphic covers all over again. But, while the current graphic covers are a stylistic choice, I think these in the past were so because technology only offered these options!

Defining the Roots of Japan(s)

If you’ve ever wondered about what makes Japanese culture unique, this brochure Roots of Japan(s): Unearthing the Cultural Matrix of Japan tells it all. Published by Japan’s Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry, this publication marks a shift in how the country promotes its creative industries, from its previous “Cool Japan” to “Creative Japan”. The aim: to communicate to Japanese and the world its unique brand of culture.

The book establishes the notion that Japan is made up of diverse cultures and briefly traces their history. What comes out of these lyrical pages edited by the Editorial Engineering Laboratory (a research institution “providing pilot models for the information age“) are exciting connections of Japan’s past, present and future. For instance, cosplay, an act of representation to bring a fantasy world to life, is traced to Japan’s Byobu screens, which once carried images of Chinese landscapes to the country’s hotel lobbies and banquet halls.

Besides outlining distinct Japanese traits, the book also theorises how its culture is generated, giving extremely fascinating insights to Japanese philosophies. Tarako (cod roe) Spaghetti, an Italian dish unique to Japan, is an instance of the trinity of concepts Shin-gyo-so, which are three basic styles of calligraphy that represent formal-casual-punk. As explained in the book:

“The pasta is cooked al dente, following the shin (authentic) Italian method, and sprinkled with dry seaweed according to the Japanese gyo (way). Eat with chopsticks rather than fork, and you’ll be so (grass) in style.”

Roots of Japan(s) was given out during the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings in Bali, and there’s no information if you can get them anywhere else. However, you can hear the laboratory’s director Seigow Matsuoka talk about this book at the recent Creative Tokyo event website (with a voiceover in English translation; start from 22:40). You can also look at images of the book and read notes in Japanese about it here and here.