October 2018 – Portfolio Site

5 artists to bring to Singapore Design Week

I believe that Singapore Design Week should be a week to invite artists from all spheres of design, to put a spotlight on their works an showcase their unique fields and contributions and how they shaped it.

Chong Wei Xin – Visual Imagery Design

In Singapore, there is a lack of notable or famous names of people who specialize as graphic designers. Visual designers like Chong Wei Xin who use imagery to bring across a striking social contemplative message, fit in to that category of graphic design even though it may not be stylistically conventional in the graphic design style.

She responds to the current state of using social media or surgery or cosmetic products as a way of beautification. She questions the need of it through her photoseries by using makeup to enhance the natural beauty of flowers.

Chrysanthemum Indicum, YSL Touche Eclat Shade 2.5

Daryl Aiden

Following his scandal last year, there are not many people who would not know of Daryl Aiden. He is a very influential Instagram photographer, caught in the scandal of photoshopping his own travel photos, using studio shots and other photographer’s stock photos to create “perfect holiday landscapes”. After the incident he publicly apologized for his dishonesty and re-branded himself as a Photoshop designer, creating a following by teaching others how to do graphical advertisements through Photoshop.

Loo Zihan

Although he is a performance artist, I would like to invite him because I would like to showcase how he attempts to re-design the Singapore arts and culture scene through provocation.

His work id like to feature is a studied re-creation of “Brother Cane,” the scandalous 1993 work which saw performance art funding cut for a decade in Singapore, following Josef Ng’s snipping of his own pubic hair in a shopping mall. Zihan’s “Cane” (2012) featured a re-enactment of the event, distilled from different archival accounts and perspectives on how the whole thing unfolded.

In his recreation he emphasizes that with clear boundaries, artists can then be fully free, without them, they cant be free. Thus by pushing boundaries in his provocative works, he seeks to push for greater freedom of artistic self expression in our conservative nation state

Daniel Boey

Daniel Boey, referred to as the “Godfather of Singapore fashion” by HerWorldPlus and “Singapore’s fashion royalty” by IS magazine, is a fashion / creative director whose name is synonymous with inspired, cutting-edge and groundbreaking ideas, and is one of the most sought-after fashion and lifestyle curators in Asia.

He worked tirelessly to elevate the Singapore Fashion Design scene, and though he is not a hands on designer himself, a curated exhibition of designs from him is what id like to showcase

If i could bring back people from the dead:

Paul Rand

I deeply appreciate the unique design principles and styles that he formed in his career. I especially love the innovative use of Rebus symbols in the IBM design. I feel his easy to understand, clean and minimalist design can make a comeback in today’s design scene, where there is a large focus on cleanliness and minimalism.

Henry Ford

I deeply admire and appreciate his contributions to industrial design. Through perfecting the assembly line, Ford was able to mass produce affordable cars, making automobiles no longer just a luxury, but a commonplace good, transforming the state of travel forever.

Id also like to highlight his views on welfare capitalism – and his contributions on the welfare of workers- creating the 5 day work week as we know of it , and also increasing the minimum wage of workers.

Trump snake

I think OSS may have accidentally deleted my trump snake writeup so I’m redoing this.

My plan was to create the conventional snake game, but this time replacing the snake with a walking animation of trump. When trump eats “food”- money, he will grow longer as his tail will extend.

i used a sprite sheet that i found via google to create the basic trump walking animation. This sprite sheet worked well because it was multi-directional instead of only being able to move left and right, allowing for four different directions for our trump snake to move in.

At first i used array list to make the snake game. With every snake head movement- ie it moves one step in one direction, i tried top code the erasure of one unit of the tail.

However, this resulted in an uneven erasure of the tail, where there were some afterimages of the snake left even after erasure.

Thus i decided to use the class method of creating the snake game

using this method, the game run a lot smoothly and the issue of adding tail was rectified.

Art history – Art Noveau Tiling Response

Growing up, my neighborhood was filled with two very special plants-bougainvillea and spider lilies. Bougainvilleas, with their bright attractive colors, captured and intrigued me. I was rather surprised when i found out that the vibrant pinks were leaves instead of flowers. Spider lilies, on the other hand, were droopy, and on hot summer days, shriveled up to look rather brown and lifeless. I thought it was a fern like plant, or a mimosa even, where its leaves will react to the heat. I was even more shocked to find out that the spider lily, despite not having the elegance and beauty associated with flora, was indeed a flower.

These two plants are at exact opposites; one resembling a flower, yet not being one, and another resembling leaves but ending up to be a flower, cheekily flirting with people’s expectations and realities.

I chose these two because their contrasting natures act as a metaphor for the complexities of Singapore society. On the outside, without much knowledge, we would only see Singapore as a rich, high living cost country. We would also only recognize and identify Singapore via our national branding and tourism image. However, only upon more understanding, do we realize that our assumptions and understandings are fundamentally flawed. Only with more awareness and knowledge do we finally get to comprehend Singapore’s true nature.

Bougainvillea, commonly found in leaf cluster of three, have a very solitary, compact shape.

In contrast, spider lilies have a very unique, asymmetrical shape.

I was really inspired by contrasting abstract shape of the spider lilies and the regularity of the bougainvilleas, thus choosing to piece them together.

I added some stylized leaf patterns to tie the contrasting shapes together, using curvilinear forms to further enhance the style of art noveau.

I chose earthy muted colors to resemble the colours used in that period.

single tile for pattern