THE ART

The Fiction We Live is part of a project by Yi Lin Juliana Ong (aka Juls) titled ‘Inasmuch as Incidentally Including all the Inconsistent and Incomprehensible Instantaneous Insatiable Insanity of Indispensable Indulgences.’

The piece contains a collection of daily journal entries with random thoughts of fabricated events and actual situations. Juls explains, “Insisting dissimilarities between two or more distant ‘realities’, questions the ever so cliché theme of what reality is and perhaps an earnest stand for insanity being the cure for living. It reminds us that the world is ours to live in any stories we want to and truth isn’t all that matters. A play with typography and line-works as divisions in the white space on paper simply enhances the visual pleasure graphically to question the need for such indulgences.”

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Kick start the creative new year by taking part in TEEase, an online t-shirt design competition presented by Crowning Stroke, proudly sponsored by Tagger and supported by S.O.T Magazine.

TEEase, is an exciting 2-stage, 4-month competition launching in January 2008. The 1st round is an open theme submission where participants can toss aside all inhibitions; unchain themselves from commercial restrictions and just design. The 2nd round then sees 10 finalists working on a theme decided by the judges; their designs will upon completion be put up on www.crowningstroke.com, where the public can vote for their favourites. Designs will be judged on originality, concept and visual appeal, and the 3 top winners will emerge based on the judges’ scoring and public votes. 3 Consolation prizes will also be given out. Participants not only stand to win cash, but also head on home with attractive Tagger gear.

The wonderful people behind Crowning Stroke aim to create a platform for fresh artistic talents to be shown and discovered, allowing anyone the opportunity to get noticed. This newartist-friendly local online t-shirt design company is ardent on being artist-focused and spreading the concept of artistic freedom; its t-shirts serve as a mobile display of the artist’s work to give artists the credit and opportunities they deserve, instead of a tool of mass production.

If that sounds exciting to you, hop over to www.crowningstroke.com to find out more.

THE DESIGN

Most people who use computers would probably say that fonts are not really their concern. In fact, they would probably express mild amusement if you went on about how important fonts are.

Danis Sie’s oversized graphic layout booklet, The Sans, is designed to promote the sans typefaces which are arguably a very popular and one of the more powerful typefaces in the design world. The publication is focused on education and looks at the proliferation of the sans typeface as part of a campaign about the way typefaces affect our daily lives. Danis explains “Each font includes a brief history and is represented by its own colour and a unique pangram. The booklet also features a few sans-serif typefaces that are widely used by the design community: Avant Garde, Din, Helvetica, Futura, Akzidenz Grotesk …” MORE »

(top) Donna telling us about her timepiece bugs. (bottom-left) Participants admiring Sandra’s work on the third floor. (bottom-right) A stuffed owl on the second floor.

Some might say that holding our virgin event in the same week as the Singapore Design Festival and right smack in the middle of monsoon season — for many folks a drop of rain paralyses the legs — might have been foolish on our part, but to our huge relief it went down well with 50 people attending our private talk and tour of Majestic Bar.

I’m glad to say that contrary to popular opinion, the artists are not a pretentious lot. Remarkably grounded and down to earth, Mark Wee (Annex A), Audrey Phng (Asian Art Options), Donna Ong, Sandra Lee, Yuki Chong and Leonard Ng (a surprise guest!) charmed us with their vision, eloquence and passion for the project.

Participants were separated into two groups and taken on a top to bottom tour of the space gamely led by Mark. From the third floor where we were wowed by Sandra’s imaginative murals that covered the walls under a canopy of stars (can we say childhood fantasy?) to the first, home of Donna’s mechanical bugs made out of old clock parts “escaping out of their clock case homes” bathed in mottled light from Yuki’s light installation inspired by looking up through a thick tree canopy. The last stop of the tour was at the entrance of the bar, where Audrey explained the man and nature idea behind Zadok Ben David’s towering piece and Leonard, his newly installed landscape on the New Majestic lawn. MORE »

THE DESIGN

Although I primarily live by anything electronic, I can never resist picking up a notebook with a well designed cover. In fact, I am the multiple-notebook-type, and I generally keep them in my handbag and around the house, and use them as a run-off for observations, random thoughts and more recently for jotting down things I remember I need to do the next day.

Last week I came across hëage‘s notebooks and I was immediately floored by his amazing fantastical illustrations. His images are rendered with a beautician’s attention to lovely make-ups and facial details, in particular the ever-sparkling eyes. Each notebook cover is printed on shimmering fancy paper and comes with a specially designed theme sticker. MORE »

Singapore is the latest stop for Inventioneering Architecture, a traveling exhibition which has traversed the globe from San Franciso to Sharjah to Shanghai. Organised by the Swiss House Singapore, this exhibition showcases Swiss architecture and is here as part of the Singapore Design Festival.

The exhibition is held on a 40-metre-long green platform that was specially designed and built by professors and students of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) and Lausanne (EPFL) and the University of Lugano (USI) to represent a cross-section of the Swiss Alps. Apart from the impressive platform, it also presents videos, books, as well as models of realised and unrealised projects made by Swiss architects and architecture students. Some of the featured firms are Studio Peter Zumthor, Studio Adrian Meyer, Studio Christian Kerez and Studio Valerio Olgiati.

The choice of location for this architecture exhibition is interesting; holding it in the middle of a gargantuan shopping mall certainly helps to reach out to a wider audience but when I was there, children were running all over and manhandling the delicate building models. I am not sure if the exhibition will survive the onslaught of grubby fingers so if you are keen to see the exhibition, it may be wise to visit it sooner rather than later.

From 22 November to 8 December at VivoCity.
http://www.inventioneering-architecture.ch/

THE DESIGN

I’m a big fan of these one-of-a-kind, multiple-use holiday cards, especially since they come with removable ornaments.

‘A Beautiful X’mas Is What You Make Of It‘ is a collaboration between designer Jonathan Yuen and B.G. Tan. A deck of four cards is housed in a custom designed package. Pieces from each card can be plucked out to form reindeer, Santa Claus, a Christmas tree and even a snowman. The cards are deliberately designed as a blank canvas, to encourage the recipients to use their imagination and creativity to personalise it. “We felt a need to create a Christmas card that is not just ‘another card.” says Jonathan. “You can write your personal greeting messages on the cards and eventually on the figurines, making an interesting and unique typographic motif. Or, children could color the cards and make figures to their own colors and pattern, and form a snowscape with Styrofoam beads. In essence … A Beautiful X’mas Is What You Make Of It.” MORE »

THE DESIGN

Small Book and Short Distance Reading is not just a collection of four short stories; it’s a pocket size book with a handmade fabric cover, with stitches surrounded by untouched raw edges. ‘The book is small and the stories are short which make it almost disposable’, says creator Aiwei. ‘The book cover is made with fabric to give it a different feel, softness and texture. The format is pocket size, because I like the idea whereby people can slip a book inside their pocket easily and read it whenever they want … it’s like eating a bowl of instant noodles … it requires no commitment, unlike reading a novel.’ MORE »