The most iconic moment of GE11?

I recently showed two strangers a copy of GE11: We Were There, a magazine of photo essays about Singapore’s recent General Election. None of them had seen this publication before, but as they flipped through it, one of them stopped at this very photograph and said, “I remember seeing that.”

This image of Workers’ Party candidate Chen Show Mao bowing while clutching on to his identity card and passport was taken by photojournalist Edwin Koo on the last day of the election rallies. According those who attended the rally at Serangoon Stadium, Chen had held up his IC and passport while declaring to the crowd that although he had been overseas for so long, he never forgot he was a Singaporean. Before he ended his speech, Chen then bowed to the crowd, a gesture that would have resonated with the thousands gathered that night.

Just two days before Chen’s bow, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had also offered a humbling note to voters when he apologised at his People’s Action Party (PAP) rally for the mistakes his government had made in the last five years. This move, mid-way through the campaign, was seen by many political observers as PAP’s charm offensive to placate a frustrated electorate, many whom felt the party had forgotten that it was elected to serve the people. Fresh with memories of that apology, the crowd would have loved the bow that Chen made, affirming their belief that it was them, the people, who should be kowtowed to.

As someone commented on this photograph that was posted on Facebook: “The humility in this picture strikes me. A Harvard, Oxford, Stanford graduate, and corporate hotshot, bowing deeply to the common people.”

While the bow was seen by thousands at the rally, Koo’s photo has made the moment iconic by letting so many more see it. The very next day after the rally, Koo put it up on his Facebook as part of his series Notes from a Singapore Son, and it went viral on social media. Koo has also since said that Facebook helped many more see his photos as compared to if they were published on the front page of The Straits Times where he once worked.

Disseminating his photograph via the internet also made it iconic because it was part of the first election that Singaporeans participated actively online. As he wrote in a Facebook note accompanying this photo album:

“Because we have Facebook today, we can finally look at the uncensored truth. We can finally know how many people really attended the opposition rallies, and what transpired during the rallies and walkabouts. We finally have unlimited space to play our pictures, and no blind editors to tell us this picture is “not fit to print”.”

And as it turns out, the photograph has even made its way offline. Koo is exhibiting it together with others from his series Notes from a Singapore Son at the School of Photography (SOP) until 30th July. Do check it out, and you can even get hold of this iconic moment as a poster or a limited print too.

Singapore’s New Creatives Mediascape

The world of content creation is changing, and I was reminded of this after reading The Story So Far: What We Know About the Business of Digital Journalism, and watching the documentary PressPausePlay this week. Both pieces of work touched upon how the digital era was changing not only how content was created, but also who was doing so and what was being produced.

This can be seen in Singapore’s media scene, which has traditionally been dominated by Singapore Press Holdings and Mediacorp. Both produce content for newspapers, magazines, television and radio — the traditional mediums of communication. They derive their revenue mainly from the content they produced, depending heavily on advertisers, as well as subscribers.

Not so for a new breed of media producers in Singapore. Besides individual bloggers, there seems to be an increasing list of publications produced by teams of people in the genre of lifestyle, arts, and culture. Take a look at Actually Magazine, a website on lifestyle and culture. The people behind it? The owners of fashion stores ACTUALLY…, ActuallyActually and Very Wooonderland. Then, there’s POSKOD.SG, an online magazine about modern Singapore that was started by a branding agency Studio Wong Huzir.

Besides starting publications online, some of these new media producers have also entered the world of print too. Branding agency kult has released the sixth issue of its illustration magazine of the same name, while design studio HJGHER is on its second issue of its lifestyle publication Underscore Magazine. Anonymous, started by the designers at SILNT, have also embarked on Bracket, a magazine that features the thoughts of some of the best minds in today’s creative world.

The one thing that is common about all these publications? None of them actually make a living off it. Instead, they are often passion projects of local creative-base companies who fund the publications with what they earn from their core business, which isn’t media. As The Story So Far notes:

“If the old formula of “adjacency” — selling ads and commercials alongside content — is fading, what will replace it? There are many possibilities, but few are likely, on their own, to provide the stream of dollars that advertising and circulation once did.”

While these publications may not earn their publishers money, there are other benefits. It is a vehicle of getting your brand out to a larger audience, creating something that expresses your values and beliefs. Both Underscore and Bracket have enabled their Singapore founders to be known overseas after the publications snagged awards and accolades.

Having their own publication also helps cultivate audiences and markets, especially if it is small and undefined. This is probably why government boards have also created their own online publications such as the National Heritage Board’s Yesterday.sg and the National Art Gallery’s The Canvas to promote their respective causes.

But it’s not just commercial companies that are redefining Singapore’s mediascape. There are also groups of Singaporeans who have harnessed the ease of publishing nowadays to pursue their own interests, forking out of their own time and money. One of the oldest must be The Flying Inkpot, a theatre and dance review that has been around since 1996. For film buffs, there is SINdie, which reports on Singapore’s independent film scene, literary lovers can turn to Quarterly Literary Review Singapore and Ceriph, while academics and critical thinkers can try out the multidisciplinary e-journal s/pores.

The magazines I have listed here are only just a small sampling of what there is out there. If you know of others I may have missed out, do let me know!

Singapore’s Pioneers in Advertising

I got to interview veteran creative director Allein Moore a couple of months back for a project to document Singapore’s design history. It turns out he too was doing documenting what went on in our advertising scene back then. Some of it is published in his online magazine ADAsia.

It is a collection of personal memories from the pioneers, beginning from the ’50s when Singapore’s modern advertising industry first began. Many of the personalities and company names will sound unfamiliar to most of us because of how much consolidation and merger the industry has underwent.

However, one name that is important from a graphic design perspective is Brian Hoyle. He first came to Singapore from the United Kingdom in 1960 to join an advertising firm. Two years later, he and other creative directors here started the Creative Circle Awards in 1962 to raise local graphic standards. Then, in 1969, he co-founded with another veteran ad man, John Hagley, a specialised graphic company known as Hagley and Hoyle — one of our earliest graphic design consultancy. The company is still around today, but no longer owned and run by either, who are both retired and back in Europe.

Find out more about Brian and other pioneers of Singapore’s ad industry here!