Category: Design

How Singapore Became the Unlikely Poster Child for Good Government Design

Save precious water. Floss your teeth. Buckle up for safety. Those are just some of the truisms familiar to generations of Singaporeans. Since gaining independence five decades ago, the Southeast Asian city-state has seen countless government campaigns aimed to mold citizens who could live up to the nation’s leap from Third World to First. Design has played a central role in these efforts, as evident in the 6,000+ posters preserved in the National Archives of Singapore.

Since its establishment in 1968, this state institution has archived posters as part of its collection of material culture—including government records, maps, photographs, oral history interviews, audiovisual, and sound recordings—that are significant to Singapore’s history. Most of its posters come from government campaigns, with a small number created for cultural events, movies, and corporations.

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Why Branding + Interior Studio The Strangely Good Judge a Place by Its Toilet + Other Design Lessons

The toilet is the last place you expect to see on a studio visit. But that’s one of the first things Michelle Lin points out after I stepped into the office of Singapore branding studio The Strangely Good.

Taking a bathroom break here is to board a train carriage inspired byThe Darjeeling Limited. Like the set in Wes Anderson’s film, The Strangely Good toilet is plastered with Art Nouveau wallpaper and floor tiles, as well as a window to another world—the perfect getaway for the graphic designer who confesses to dreaming up ideas while handling her other business. This interior also weirdly epitomizes the work and design philosophy of The Strangely Good.

➜ Read the rest at AIGA’s Eye on Design 

How the “Type Geeks“ of Malaysia are Using Typography to Change Sexist Chinese Language

After learning how sexist the Chinese language is, designers Tan Sueh Li and Karmen Hui put their typography skills to use. The two Malaysian women, better known as TypoKaki, designed new Chinese characters incorporating the radical for woman (女, pronounced “nu”) to redefine the traditional patriarchal language for the country’s modern women.

Take, for instance, the typical Chinese character for peace (安), which depicts a woman (女) who stays within the house by covering it with a top radical (宀). To express how women in Malaysia are often segregated in public spaces because of Islam, the duo hacked the Chinese character for space (间) to insert the radical for a woman instead.

 This is just one of 30 characters Li and Hui designed for Women’s Words, a tiny red dictionary created with fellow Malaysian writer and researcher Tan Zi Hao. Created for a feminist art event in Malaysia, it’s just one example of how TypoKaki has been using typography and design to explore Malaysian culture since 2012.

➜ Read the rest at AIGA’s Eye on Design