Tag: AIGA

Graphic Means Documentary Recalls the Days When Design was Made by Hand

Getting fingers burnt by hot wax was once all in a day’s work for a graphic designer. Before the computer came along, designers used a tool known as a waxer to coat a paper with the hot adhesive before sticking it on a page layout in a manual process known as the paste-up. No doubt designers are only too happy to leave this and other labor-intensive production methods in the past, but for those who still get misty-eyed over rapidographs and Diatype machines, the new documentary, Graphic Means, promises to take you back to the days before desktop publishing and the digital revolution of the late ’80s.

➜ Read the rest at AIGA’s Eye on Design

Singapore’s Anonymous Design Studio on How to Survive in Business: Realllly Try

Instant noodles are a key ingredient in the decade-long story of communication design studio Anonymous. It kept founders Felix Ng and Germaine Chong alive for a week while they waited for clients to pay their bills. But even before that low point in their early design days, instant noodles imparted a key lesson in design for the fledgling Singapore studio.

On their first-ever trip to Tokyo, Ng and Chong were astonished by the packaging design for some dry instant noodles they saw at a convenience store. Typically these bowls have just one opening for pouring hot water both in and out to cook the noodles, requiring an awkward balance to keep the noodles in. But the Japanese package had a separate perforated opening just for draining out the water.

It seems simple enough, but this was a revelation for Ng. “Very often, what we create as designers is invisible. It’s there. It helps make my life easier, but you don’t even realize it’s there,” he said in a Skype interview. “I want to do work that, in a way, is slightly invisible but has a point to it.” (Inspiration for their studio name, perhaps?)

➜ Read the rest at AIGA’s Eye on Design

How an Illustrators’ Organization is Shaking Things Up in Singapore

Emmartee (2012) by Dan Wong depicts life in the Singapore subway system.

 

Cool drawing instruments were what first drew Michael Ng (better known as Mindflyer) into the world of illustration. Since then, he’s progressed from drawing technical diagrams as a trainee draftsman to illustrating surrealistic, psychedelic imagery as an independent—and quickly becoming known as one of Singapore’s leading illustrators. Together with illustrators Andrew Tan (Drewscape) and Lee Wai Leng (Fleecircus), the 50-year-old is also the co-founder of the Organisation of Illustrators Council (OIC), a champion for illustration in Singapore. Who else better than this veteran to give us a tour of the Singapore illustration scene and introduce us to some of its emerging talents?

What does illustration look like in Singapore today?
Somehow when you talk about illustration here, straightaway people think of anime, conceptual art for production, and even graffiti. Illustration for editorial and adverting is a minority, and this is what we’re trying to change through OIC. There’s just more exposure for the other forms of illustration here through computer games, movies, and anime.

 

➜ Read the rest at AIGA’s Eye on Design