Tag: Singapore Design

Designing Their Own Sense Of Place

After I wrote about how Singaporean creatives were re-shaping our local mediascape, I was told of another that has just launched: Terroir Magazine. This is a bi-annual magazine that features travel photography from Singaporeans, and as it French name suggests (roughly translates to “a sense of place”), the magazine is a collection of Singaporeans perspectives on places they’ve been. I’ve yet to read the magazine, but it’s a topic which could lend to photo essays that make places look exotic, but also provide an “outside-in” perspective of looking at how Singaporeans see the world in relation to this city.

Terrior is self-published in the entire sense. The first issue is produced in the home of founder Benjamin Koh —  all 160 pages of each issue are printed using his four inkjet printers before he glues and stitches them together. It’s a laborious process, and Benjamin can produce only up to four magazines a week, after his busy work day at a branding and design firm.

I recently spoke to him over e-mail about this endeavor of his:

How did the idea of Terroir Magazine come about?

I have wanted to do a magazine for about as long as I can remember. And it so happened that the photographs from my first trip overseas in eight years (discounting afternoon skirmishes to Johor Bahru for lunch) to Vietnam at the end of last year turned out in this sort of mood that has been rather elusive in my photographs taken in Singapore. So a magazine related to travel photography was mooted. The content would also be more interesting and engaging.

It’s interesting that the magazine is looking at what various places mean to Singaporeans. Why this direction and how did it come about?

It is rather eye-opening to witness the emancipation of photography, from people who could afford to buy expensive equipment to (almost) every man on the street. The influx of people carrying DLSRs on Orchard Road in recent years is testament that digital photography has actually gotten more people interested in photography than ever before.

And then there is the “lomography” movement of high-contrast, saturated and colourful photographs taken by (mostly) plastic film cameras.

So it got me thinking that a magazine showcasing talented local photographers might work, but definitely not with photographs about Singapore, because we have probably lived here long enough such that we can no longer capture it from a fresh perspective.

Who are the people behind it and how did you all meet?

The first issue of Terroir Magazine is a collaboration between Rachel Han, Michelle Lim, Stephanie Ng and myself.

It is actually pretty amazing but Stephanie came across my work on Behance a few years back. She told Rachel about it when they were doing an internship together in 2010. Rachel and I met up in January this year after she initiated a collaboration and that was when things started to fall in place. I invited Stephanie after that because I really like her photographs.

Michelle is a friend of mine from LASALLE. I have always wanted to work together with her on a project.

What is a designer doing publishing his own magazine?

Purely for the love of it!

The entire magazine is printed on one of your four ink-jet printers and put together by hand. Why not go to a regular printer?

The sheer effort needed to print a single copy of Terroir is now sinking in, but the initial idea was not to let my printers collect dust at home just because I have started working full-time. I am definitely keen to approach a publisher to get on board this project. At least now I will have something to show!

Could you detail the kind of work you have to go about to put together this magazine? 

It took quite a few informal meetings, rounds of layout trials, paper and typeface tests before we settled on the final design. We had to trim some content because Coptic-stitch binding requires an even-number total page count.

I had wanted to saddle-stitch the magazine initially, but after printing an entire copy and having bound it that way, I felt that saddle-stitch did not do the magazine justice.

So after the printing of all eight signatures are done, holes have to be poked through them before they can be sewn. It is quite unnerving because poking holes off-centre would mean reprinting an entire signature.

The spine has to be glued before the binding is considered complete. I do not have a bookbinding jig, so I had to improvise — use bookends, hardcover books and magazines to secure the magazine in place for the glue to be applied.

I got the blind-embosser made but had to print wood-free sticker labels black on my inkjet and die-cut them using my circle cutter. After that it is only a matter of blind-embossing the stickers.

What have been some challenges of working this way?

Time! Each copy takes seven hours to print and bind. It takes three more hours for the glue to dry. And then there is the constant worry about misalignments because the paper is very thin, such that the printer’s paper feeder will take it in at slight angles. I have to manually feed every single piece and pray each time I do so.

Wow, $100 for your first issue. Don’t you think your magazine is too expensive for most?

I think the amount of time, effort and dedication that went into the magazine justifies the price. It also takes an incredible amount of ink to print and I have never ever used up so many ink cartridges in my entire life.

Tell us a bit more about what we’ll get to read in the first issue.

The eight places featured in the first issue are: Shanghai, Suzhou, Ho Chi Minh City, Can Tho City, Jeju Island, Nami Island, Sikkim and Bangkok.

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Local Design Culture? A view from Japan

I finally sat down and read through a borrowed copy of Kenya Hara’s Designing Design and I’m kicking myself for not getting a copy when it was still available. It’s sold out everywhere now and I’m waiting for a reprint. In a chapter where he attempts to define Japan’s design culture, the Japanese designer likens his country’s location to the platform of a pachinko game, a form of pinball that is upright.

He wrote:

“Japan, catching such a great variety of diverse cultures via multiple routes, was probably a very tangled cultural locus. Accepting all and continually shouldering the chaos, quite the reverse of what one might expect, created an extreme hybrid that amalgamated them all in one breath. That is to say, perhaps our ancestors came up with the idea of stopping them all in their tracks, negating them with the utmost simplicity: zero.”

If you think about it, this unique geographical location that Kenya is describing sounds very much like Singapore. We are also at the crossroads of many different cultures. The exception is our ancestor’s response has not been to “negate them with the utmost simplicity”. But I wouldn’t say we have gone the other extreme to create a “hybrid that amalgamated them all”.

What we seemed to have done is to manage the cultures separately, keeping them apart and producing designs that hark back to the respective cultures, or something like this when we need to address everyone:

At times, we also defer to our common/working language and culture, English, producing designs that fall in line with global aesthetics. I am not against globalisation but I just wonder what happens when we allow more flux amongst our people and in their expression? Again, Kenya covers this issue with a lucid explanation:

“I am not writing from a standpoint of anti-globalisation. It’s been a long, long time since the onset of active international exchange, it would be nonsense today to insist on the idiosyncrasies of individual cultures. I simply believe it must be meaningful to be conscious of the part of Japan that’s capable of contributing to universal values.”

You got to read this book if you haven’t. Not available at bookstores anymore, but you can still borrow it from the library.

 

Where are Singapore’s Old Playgrounds today?


View Old Singapore Playgrounds in a larger map

Finally had some time to review my research on Singapore’s old playgrounds, and I’ve updated my Google Map with the 19 that are still standing today. The designs of these playgrounds were done between 1979 and 1993 when the HDB took it upon themselves to create and build their own playspaces as part of the public housing estate. Many of the designs were inspired by local culture, and took on a secondary role of becoming visual icons for Singaporeans.

The playgrounds that came after, and have become what we recognised today, are imported from overseas instead. They are cheaper to build, easier to maintain, and generally more innovative in design because they are created by global companies who have the scale to invest in research and development.

I’ve also found images of other playgrounds designs that no longer exist and I’m trying to see how to piece all this together for some kind of article/book. Hopefully, I can get something out by the end of this year. Meanwhile, if you chance by any old playgrounds that I’ve not located on my map, please write to me!