just rambling

Sticking Up For Singlish

It took a semester away from Singapore for local graphic designer Ray Han to begin to wonder what it meant to be a Singaporean. While on exchange as a student at Maryland Institute College of Art, the recent graduate of NTU’s School of Art, Design and Media (ADM) realised how little people understood and knew about Singapore. This is why she created A Piece of Gum. A Peace of Gum, an illustrated book about Singlish, for her final-year project that was showcased in the recent ADM Grad Show 2010.

“I decide to work on Singlish. because I believed that it is the only non state engineered piece of culture and is an organic fusion of the diversity,” says Ray over an e-mail interview.

Putting together the English reference to “bubble gum” which is banned here, along with the similar sounding Hokkien word “gum”, meaning the ability to live in harmony, Ray has put together a visual book with minimal text but lots of visual metaphors to tell the story of Singlish — a language created out of the diversity of peoples here, and has helped to bring them together.

This book is Ray’s first step in a quest to create a timeless design that represents the collective identity of Singaporeans. “I think Singaporeans born and lived in Singapore will always have their identity with them, because we grow, breathe, talk and eat here,” she says. “I believe the identity is formed without them knowing.”

She hopes that this book will help readers discover Singapore culture from a graphic designer’s point of view, and she’ll love to see it publish one day. For Ray, infusing national identity into their design is a matter of choice. “The decision to represent the collective identity excites me, and designers who are equally interested in this area can help bring knowledge for the world to understand and appreciate our roots, and stories,” she says.

Now that she has graduated, designing will have to take a backseat for Ray. She is on a Ministry of Education scholarship, and will be teaching for the next four years. However, she will continue designing and one day start up her own design label.

Find out more about Ray and her book, A Piece of Gum, at <http://theraybit.com>

Bridging the Disconnect with Design

Look 喜喜 by Ang Tze Qi and 玩: Traditional Chinese Games by Cheong Jia Qi

Old is gold, or so it seems, for this year’s visual communication graduates of the School of Arts, Design and Media (ADM) in the Nanyang Technological University. Most of their final-year projects on display at the ADM Grad Show 2010 were the re-packing of old traditions and cultures in new visual forms. Some of the subjects “re-designed” included Hakka culture, traditional Chinese games, Chinese wedding customs, Kimonos, the Chinese peony and Feng Shui.

Hakka Culture by Alvin Leu and Creation and Metamorphosis of Chinese Hanzi by Low Weining Kasxier

This popular choice amongst our young local designers of mining heritage for design seems to reflect a certain disconnect between our youth and the old in Singapore. The traditions and customs of yesteryear are seen as strange and inaccessible to today’s youth, and the response of these curious young designers is to redesign them. This is also a strategy employed by museums here, notably the National Museum of Singapore. Since its re-opening in 2006, the museum has employed graphic design to package history in edgy visuals to attract the younger generation. Some of that energy and approach must have rubbed off  this batch of graduates.

Interestingly, many of the works also centered around Chinese culture. The use of ‘trendy’ designs and English as the language of choice suggest that these projects are created for an English-speaking audience. Again, we see design being used to bridge another Singapore disconnect — that of the English-speaking graduate class and their curiosity with their ethnic culture. Here, we can also see ‘who’ graphic designers are in Singapore — mostly Chinese.

五行 by Lam Si Yun and 朋: What Makes a Friend by Wang Shi Hui

While, the youth may take a liking to how heritage has been repackaged for them in these forms, it’ll be interesting to see this collection of projects put to the older generation as well. Will they be able to comprehend these ‘edgy’ designs? And will they think that such repackaging has “consumerise” their cultures — a sell-out, perhaps?

Longevity by Low Lay Hiang

Free Magazines From The Streets of Singapore

Out and about with nothing to read? Here’s five free reads you can pick up from shops, cafes, museums and libraries in Singapore.

—————————————————————————————————–

JUICE

This is the monthly guide to Singapore’s music and clubbing scene. Since it launched in 1998, JUICE has become an institution of local free street magazines. Each issue features news, reviews, and interviews with local and international musicians. There’s also a fashion spread. But, the perennial favourite has to be the ‘Scene’ section where you can check out who’s been out partying all night! Since June this year, JUICE has also published a special edition for sale at $4 that features extra content and exclusive promotions and offers.

WHERE TO FIND IT
Fashion stores, cafes and restaurants.

—————————————————————————————————–

I-S Magazine

The granddaddy of free street magazines in Singapore. I-S is a weekly that  covers the entertainment and lifestyle scene in Singapore and has been around since 1995. The latest issue comes out every Friday, and is packed with listings of the latest exhibitions, art events, films and theatre productions. There is also a guide on where to eat and party. The soul of the magazine, however, is its features stories and interviews that sometimes cover the most current controversial issues with a cheeky touch. Another favourite is its OB Index, which charts the state of freedom of expression here Where do they get their sense of humour? The answer could be found it the advertisements of its classifieds section.

WHERE TO FIND IT
Most fashion stores, cafes and restaurants.

—————————————————————————————————–

BeMUSE

Who says free stuff can’t come without puff? BeMUSE is a quarterly magazine started in 2007 that celebrates heritage (No, not a puff word for history!) with photos and essays about the latest museum exhibitions. It is published by Singapore’s National Heritage Board (NHB), which explains why its articles feature exhibitions from its museums. However, this is more than just a beautifully designed public relations guide  – many of the articles are written by the exhibition curators themselves making it almost like attending a curator’s tour!

WHERE TO FIND IT
Museums and hotels.

—————————————————————————————————–

Kult Magazine

Here’s one for those who don’t like to read: Kult is a quarterly that uses visual arts to explore social issues. Each issue, by the similarly named creative agency, features works from illustrators from all over the world and it has so far covered the themes of truth, artificiality and AIDS. Since the magazine started in 2009, Kult has challenged the notion of magazines by not only having a printed form but also adapting its content to fit an 80’s arcade machine and an interactive online edition. Read my earlier review here.

WHERE TO FIND IT
Design schools and cafes in town.

—————————————————————————————————–

BiblioAsia

For Singapore history buffs, this one’s for you. This is a quarterly journal of academic articles written by the librarians and the research fellows of the National Library Board. Since it started in 2005, BiblioAsia has published articles on lesser known topics of Singapore’s history — physical education, children literature, Malay scripts — making it an excellent resource for budding researchers. The articles also come with references that you can follow-up on at the library.

WHERE TO FIND IT
National Libraries

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

A lookback at THE LASALLE SHOW ‘10

This was my first year attending graduate showcases of graphic design students. My first visit was to NAFA’s Be A Good Creative, which was disappointing. It didn’t help that my designer friend had warned me beforehand that local graduation shows were a waste of time. So, I didn’t expect too much when I visited THE LASALLE SHOW ‘10 for the graduates of LASALLE College of the Arts. And, I’m glad I did. To be fair, LASALLE seems to have a much wider pool of graphic design students judging by the number of exhibits. Their Design Communication certificates, which you can specialise in Advertising Communication, Graphic Communication and Image & Communication, begin from diploma level and go up to a Master of Arts in Design.

The show left me with the impression that LASALLE graphic design graduates were educated with an approach to graphic design that was more conceptual than mere ’styling’. Their Diploma level students worked on real-world problems, such as designing way-finding systems for People’s Park Complex and Toa Payoh bus interchange, and advertising concepts for National Museum Singapore and Yellow Pages. Their graduates’ work brought that to another level by tackling the issues of graphic design’s application in the real world.

A project that literally stood out (left) was Richard Phua’s White Ink, a series of visuals that shows the negative spaces that one usually doesn’t “see”, but is all around us. One thing he did was to print a book of newspaper pages on transparencies. This eliminated the white space and made you realise how difficult reading is without white space! Unfortunately, Richard’s website hardly says anything (actually, nothing).

Stella Clarissa’s Dyslexia: I See Words Differently (right) introduces graphic design to investigate a community’s specific problem — reading. Even as graphic designers constantly argue about legibility issues, we often forget that the argument is based on the vision of a normal person. Her work inserts this community’s concern to nudge graphic design towards a more inclusive form of communication.

The Papercy Project (left), by Benjamin Koh, brings alive the medium of paper in a series of posters that are just beautiful and interactive. As part of this project, he created an astronomy calendar and posters that celebrate a origami typeface and the year of biodiversity. In an era where it’s so easy to do design digitally, it’s great to still see graphic designers showing the beauty of what a pair of hands can do.

While the graduates works showed the possibilities of graphic design, LASALLE’s Masters students used it as an intellectual tool to understand our culture. Aditi Bhari’s Impressions of a City: Singapore created a visually exciting book of what shapes this country. He’s managed to appropriate images of our everyday visual culture and matched them with observations from some of Singapore’s best intellectual minds. I’ll love to get hold of the book!

Finally, Sanchita Jain’s Decoding Culture combines graphic design with intervention in public spaces as a kind of experiment to pin down India’s culture. She created a series of public signs that are beautiful, hilarious and sometimes puzzling (as viewed from a different culture) and put them up in India to see how people react. This was all cut into a short film. She actually created similar signs for Singapore, but unfortunately she did not have time to conduct a similar experiment here. Although, I wonder if she might get into trouble if she carried out such a Situationist act here.

And that’s my take on THE LASALLE SHOW ‘10. In a way, it’s restored my belief that students’ work can be exciting and great. Plus, it was only a year ago when I was a student, so I can totally understand how comments, both good and bad, can shape the journey ahead!