Tag: Publication Design

D&AD winner UNDERSCORE launches issue two

Fresh from winning a pencil from this year’s D&AD in the Magazine & Newspaper Design section, UNDERSCORE magazine, created by local design collective Hjgher, is launching its second issue at four venues this weekend. From Oct 21 to Oct 25, four versions of the The Constant Issue will be showcased together with four limited edition Vanguard bicycles crafted for UNDERSCORE. The magazine and four bicycles will be available for pre-sale at the installations.

You can view the installations at the following four places:

  • 2902 Gallery, OldSchool, 11B Mount Sopphia, #B2-09
  • Books Actually, 86 Club Street
  • Grafunkt, Park Mall, 9 Penang Road, #B1-21
  • Fred Perry Laurel, 19 Ann Siang Road

Sticking Up For Singlish

 

 

A Sticky Piece Of Gum

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.

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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.

StickyPeace

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>

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 artcade
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 issue 3KULT

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.

Flag17coverFL.ag