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.

 

Rosa Rugosa, YSL Touche Eclat Shade 2.5

 

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.

Mobile of Hope: process

Conceptualization

Because this project requires the use of gestalt to fuse two images together, with clear distinction of figure and ground, i started to research into easily recognizable images with clearly defined shapes.

At the same time i started to make mind maps connecting different concepts in which i thought would best represent hope. Below you can see that there are many different concepts, focusing in flight, water, and space.

 

Originally, i started off with the idea of little prince, using space motifs like planets to represent hopes and aspirations of the patients. However, that design idea was scrapped because the circular shapes of the planets were too circular, lacking in contrast and an interesting silhouette.

I began to do more research, developing a design that made use of curves and at the same time retained contrasting angles. The concept of contrast, both in the design sense, and the conceptual sense, intrigued me. I felt that through utilizing contrast, I could create a design that truly resonates with the patients– for the patients live a life of constant juxtaposition of illness and health.

In the end, I ended up choosing the concept of Water, expounding on it and creating a contrasting dichotomy between two opposing forces- Man and Nature. I used the water motif to represent the harsh forces of nature, how insurmountable and challenging it seems. This reflects the reality of patients, constantly struggling over their illness. Even faced with such challenges, the patients bravely fight on, like humans who try to tame the waves.

The surfers, the submarine- navigators, and the yacht-sailors are just mere, weak humans, trying so hard to go against the currents of nature, pushing forward with their weak human bodies, against the cruel and uncaring brutal strength of nature. Even before the humans existed, and after the humans die, the waves have and will still exist, laughing at the face if the small, insignificant splashes made by human effort. But these people don’t back down, and neither do they give up, knowing the futility.

With this understanding and this layer of meaning, these imageries have close parallels to the patients’ journey and almost act as metaphors. Thus i chose these images to create my graphic form.

 

Initially, i had a very hard time coming up with graphic designs. My shapes tended to very towards the illustrative, as they were too detail oriented. After consulting with Michael, and comments from friends, I realized that the details, although adding flourish to the design, create too many focal points around the design, and confuse the viewer’s gaze.

 

 

after many trials, i finally was able to simplify my designs into clean graphical strokes. I attempted to design according to the Fibonacci spiral and golden ratio circles, creating designs with leading lines that highlight the blending of figure and ground.

 

The nature motif, represented by aquatic animals, makes up the positive space, and the human is the negative space, almost like the human effort is trying to chip and erode away some of nature’s power from within.

when adding color, I initially attempted to use gradiented pastels to create the soft and airy look. I wanted my colors to blend together harmoniously, to provide feelings of peace, serenity and encouragement. However, this idea was rejected became Michael explained to me the nature of logo design would be to have simple and crisp colors to save on printing cost.

Thus i looked into forming crisp sharp lines, aligning with the golden ratio, to block out colors in the positive space of my graphic form.

 

 

final images and a video of my mobile can be found here:

Mobile of Hope : FINAL

 

 

Poster analysis

The poster is overall very well structured as it makes very good use by leaving a lot of negative spacing, creating a string figure and ground distinction. This distinction, coupled with the central placement of the letterforms, directs emphasis onto the letterforms.

The poster is divided in three groups of text, the introductory, “the shining” and the credits. With “the shining” being in large bold text, with heavy weight, and in a skewed position, it is emphasized and differentiated from the other letterforms, and catches the eye strikingly as a graphic form rather than being mere typography.

The slant also guides the viewer’s eyes down in one straight column, directing the line of sight over the poster’s information in a concise order.

playing with the positive space of the font shape, a shocked, horror-filled face is embedded within “the”. The image, grainy and pointilised, retains structural ambiguity about is nature and its subject. It doesn’t reinforce if the figure is a human or a spirit, or in between. This creates an unsettling image, as the viewers are left to piece together the gap.

the figure’s eyes guide the viewer’s gaze down to the letters of “shining”, further emphasizing the movie’s title and creating a striking impression.

 

The color of the poster is intriguing. Mustard yellow and black make for a very strong contrast. In our nature, we associate such colors with danger, as evidenced from the colors of yellow jackets, tiers and venomous snakes. The poster is trying t communicate with our subconscious and notify us of the potential horrors that await us in this movie

 

i really love how Milton Glaser creates graphic illustrations using color blocking. Being more detail inclined, i often find it hard to create graphic forms/illustrations without veering into being too distracting. Milton Glaser creates simplified, clean designs using good grasp of colors and the use of ground and figure.

In this poster of aretha franklin, he blocks out a positive form using squares, with one contrasting edge of curves. The squarish positive form is placed in the center and further constrained by the solid rectangular line in the negative space of the background.

The curves of aretha franklin’s hair break the monotony of the otherwise constrained form, creating an interesting visual contrast. It also leads the eye around the form.

The colour contrasts in the positive image are blocked out by edge lines and curves, further leading the eye around a line of sight down the image