just rambling

Wish I Could Go For These…

Am up to the neck with work at the moment, but my inbox is filled with e-mailers of these really interesting events starting this coming weekend. Here’s a little plug for them and I hope I can find time to check them out!

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Causeway Exchange: The Lighter Side of Malaysia
26-31 August @ The Arts House

Sidenote: Catch 15Malaysia, a short film project by 15 Malaysian filmmakers. You can also view the entire project online here.

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6th Singapore Short Film Festival

28 Aug – 5 Sept @ The Substation Theatre

Sidenote: Nice poster and typeface! Done by Winnie Goh, the same graphic designer who did Substation’s 1st Experimental Film Forum held earlier this year. She also did the logo of the kid’s magazine that I work for and the editorial design for Ceriph.

Presenting at ROJAK 16

I have been invited to speak at ROJAK 16 and I will be presenting my research on the visual culture heritage of Singapore. This includes the design of the Straits Times, old playgrounds, and my latest work on our public transport information system that will be published in the upcoming issue of The Design Society Journal. By coincidence, another project that I’ve been involved in, Uniquely Singapore? A generi-city project, is also being presented that day by Johnny Gao and Calvin Chua. See you there!

Kult: A Visual Archive of Our Time

The magazine market with its quick turnaround and fierce competition has always been a fertile ground for creativity. This is a latest incarnation (ok, I’m a little late in discovering this) of a magazine: Kult’s ArtCade Machine — 3D Magazine. It merges a magazine with a 80’s arcade machine!
KULT

Kult, is a free printed quarterly magazine by a local creative agency of the same name that uses visual culture to explore issues of our society today. The ArtCade was created for its launch issue last year that explored the theme of “Trust”.

In its second issue, Kult looked at the “Artificial” and also created an interactive online version of its magazine. Unfortunately, it is offline currently. The magazine edited by Brendan Graham and art directed by Steve Lawler recently published its third issue, which features some 29 illustrations by artists from all around the world that looks at the health epidemic AIDS. Compared to the first two issues, which came in forms that explored new boundaries in magazine publishing, this is a little bit more regular, but still an interesting read.

KULT

Kult isn’t the first local magazine that devotes itself to use visual culture to explore issues. In fact, its art director Steve worked on the last issue of a now defunct local magazine FL.ag that runs on the same concept. Interestingly, the issue of FL.ag that Steve worked on also looked at AIDS and its cover image is the same one done by Austin Cowdall found inside this issue of Kult.

FL.ag

THE LASALLE SHOW ‘10

It’s the season for graduate shows. After feeling a little disappointed with Nanyang Academy Fine Arts show, I was wowed by what I saw at THE LASALLE SHOW 2010. I’ll come back with some of the more interesting works from its Design Communication graduates, but check it out if you can. The show ends this Thursday, June 10. Meanwhile, just look at the fine show catalog done by MAKE.

Singapore in a Visual

A few months ago I explored the idea of Singapore being represented by its own typeface. Here’s a project, CitID, that is attempting to visually represent every city in the world! So far it has managed to get each continent covered and it is working towards having every country, capitals and cities represented. It is also now open to public submissions and two have come from Singapore:

Interestingly, even a town in Singapore have been represented…

It’ll be interesting to see how other parts of Singapore will be represented…