In this project, we were required to make a zine about a place we were allocated to. For me, I was allocated to – BUGIS.

As we all know, Bugis is mostly known as a famous shopping place AND for the food cafes. But I find that it’s too cliche to talk about the modern stuff of Bugis. Instead, I decided to make my zine more about the history of it. Not much people know that Bugis is actually a race in Indonesia and Singapore.

My initial idea was to follow the concept of old newspapers to show that it is of history content.

However, when shown for consultation, comments were given that it was not graphic enough. I was told to rethink about my idea and try to focus more on flat design concept.

While brainstorming, I decided to start with having a fixed color palette as to make it very contrasting.

I came up with these designs.

Comments: The borders are not of Malay/Indonesian design. And try to make an interesting heading instead of the name “Bugis” only.

Comments: All the buildings are fighting for attention and the composition looks very cluttered and cramped together. Instead of focusing on 3D/Perspective imaging, try to focus on flat front view designs of the buildings.

Comments: The sudden separation between the 2 pages seem awkward. Try to combine both pages together and have a fix color scheme. The ocean doesn’t have to be blue and the continents doesn’t have to be green, you can play around with colors.

Comments: It doesn’t show that Buginese people lived by the Kallang River. Do they live in the building above? Try to add in a kampung to the image to show that they lived in kampungs on the river.

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Upon further improvement, I heed the advice and comments given and tried to further improve my composition. I’ve never really tried flat graphic designs before but I gave it a try. Here are the current improvements!

I added in the words “Niga Tau” which translates to “Who are” in Buginese language. I then changed the borders to something more floral and malay-like which is the famous fan/flower windows found in most modern kampungs.

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For this particular design, I decided to focus on a front perspective view of buildings with the name “Bugis” in it and make it as cartoonized as possible, while showing only the prominent elements for the buildings. Bugis Junction with the ship, Bugis Street with its red top cover and cross tiles and Bugis+ with the black and white building and the red-green-yellow building which was once known as Iluma. I decided to follow the trendy flat design found of front perspective view.

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From the previous design I did of this composition, I’ve decided to combine both elements together and create it into a single A4 page. I included both countries and created a route from Singapore to Indonesia and vice versa (as they are constantly travelling). I then added in texts descriptions about the Buginese people. Comments given was that it was too loud since it was placed in the middle and too large till the rest of my elements were drowning behind it. And the words on the countries were blending in with the other fonts which made it too confusing when reading.

Thus, I decided to use the country colours and fill in the continents (coincidence that both of the countries uses the same colour, phew!) I also reduced the description about the Buginese people and placed it on the bottom left to make it less obvious.

While presenting, comments were given that the description was too blocky and squarish as compared the the free-shaped route drawn to show the movement of the Buginese people. If I were to make the blocky words more freestyled/shaped, it could be better.

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For this piece, I decided to show that the Buginese people lived by the Kallang River and in sea kampungs. I used a 2-colour palette to show this composition. Using a front view of the kampung, I placed it above a yellow sea. In the white sky, I added in green clouds and also a original-yellow sun.

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For the back page, I made it as simple as possible with minimal wordings, “For it was also them who made Singapore what it is today”. This is to reiterate that Buginese people were one of the first few to contribute to the upbringing of Singapore but they are so underrated. I added in the fan and the ever-so-popular Indonesian/Malay Sanggul (head-dress) and combined them together to form one icon.

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All in all, I really enjoyed this project. It allowed me to experiment on things that I was not comfortable with in the beginning. It was a challenge for me which I gladly took up as I am more of a 3D-kind of person as compared to flat designs. I am quite pleased with the end product and it was a $6.40 well-spent, hehe.