Click Image for more views. Photography: Lim Zhi Hao.

Kitty Cho recently graduated with a degree in Industrial Design from of the National University of Singapore. Design to Kitty is a tool to help improve the lives of others. “I also enjoy creating beautiful forms,” she adds. “The experience of creating something based on a feeling within myself, and the knowledge that a part of me exists in the product, is fascinating. I am really thankful that I am able to do that.”

Kitty’s motivation for her BOO design (above) was to bridge the gap between the traditional, outdated bamboo crafts and the contemporary designs which lack the quality of bamboo. Kitty explains, “Bamboo has a deep meaning in traditional Chinese culture; the roots of the plant denote resoluteness, the tall straight stems represent honorability, its hollow interior modesty and its clean and spartan exterior exemplifies chastity. Contemporary versions of bamboo products however, lose this richness of the material.”

The result is a contemporary lounge chair that captures the beauty and essence of bamboo, or in Kitty’s words “The design has a craft quality without being a craft product. “The bamboo pieces are tall and tower over the person,” she explains. “As someone rests on the bamboo, it moves and clatters, mimicking the effect of being in a bamboo grove. By resting on the backing, you can experience the material’s unique combination of flexibility and rigidity. Through the use of a material application, the need for complex mechanisms used to make a flexible backrest can be eliminated. To give a light and free feeling to the bamboo, the base of the chair is reduced to a fluid sheet of material, so as not to weigh the bamboo down.”

In case you still haven’t read our ‘about’ section, I like T-shirts. 24-year old graphic designer, Budi Satria Kwan, provides people like me, with a nice line up of some sharp and aesthetically deft designs. He just came out with a powerful new print entitled Perversion of Paranoid Populace, which looks nothing short of rad.

“I like putting out T-shirt designs,” Budi beams. “I have a set of buttons in front of me which I push repeatedly to create drawings. Books help too, but mostly it is about the buttons. The PPP design (above) is inspired by a blog I read earlier, written by a woman who lives in the USA. She made a point about how much privacy is left after satellite imaging programs like google streetviews enable people from around the world to watch every single thing which is happening on the face of the earth. In a way it is cool, but on the other hand, we all have a defined line where we prefer things to be undisclosed.”

Take a look at more solid designs on Budi’s site.

Opening on 11 September, The Days from director Boi Kwong is based on a true story and tells the tale of Singapore’s young street gangs between 1989 and 1990.

The trailers and tie-in promos for the movie come packed with frenetic creativity, kicking off with an online release of a series of one-of-a-kind comic stories by local illustrators Josef Lee, Fleecircus, Sam Lay and Kenfoo.

Read on as we chat with Randy Ang -one of the producers- about the combination of film, illustration and music, and what it takes to make it all come together. Ernest Chua, Guitarist and Vocalist of Blackforest, talks about working on the soundtrack. And to give you some insight into the process of developing motion graphics for a movie, we also speak to Motion Graphics Director and Designer, Josef Lee, who tells us how he approached the project.

MORE »

Click image for more views.

Low Lin Kiat turns 26 this year and is a fresh-off graduate from NUS with a degree in Industrial design. “I am trying my hands on different design disciplines,” he says, “from making figurines, to sculpting fiberglass furniture, to mural paintings. I am currently tackling design challenges of a different kind, working in the RND department for Shimano, a bicycle components maker.”

Come Fly With Me (above) is Low’s successful interpretation of the 2006 Furniture Design competition theme, FLY. “I wanted to create something I could relax in,” Low explains, “with a lot of cushions, for one person or more, something that was great to look at, and fun to sit in. At the same time I wanted to to create a freedom of form not often seen in furniture archtypes. And it worked well. That was for me the best part. Having made a prototype that was genuinely fun and welcomed by a wide age group and … well … even by other species.”

Make sure to check out Low’s other designs in his Coroflot portfolio.

Affectionately known by his friends as HAO, Soh Jun Hao likes to dabble with drawings and illustrations and fuse them into contemporary art. HAO’s alter ego in the graphic universe is a metamorphic creature, in search of discovering and creating a dialogue with his audience.

PHILOSOPHY

I am a self-proclaimed geek.
I try to induce humor and laughter.
I like to keep things simple, clean and neat.
I like to sleep but unfortunately that is not a privilege I have.
I am always in the process of discovering and creating a dialogue with my audience.
I gain inspiration from everyday people and life, and today’s urban culture influences most of my artwork.

Refresh your browser if you don’t see the banner.

‘Liquid City‘ is a Sonny Liew comics-anthology, presenting an edgy vision of city life in the past, present and future. The book is a mixed bag of amazing and sometimes plain whacked work from artists and writers from South-East Asia and beyond. “Aside from hopefully providing a platform for some of the creators to be read by a wider audience, I thought just having a collection of stories might be one step in the long road of creating a comics community here in South-east Asia,” Sonny explains.

The Liquid City artists and writers work in a variety of styles; from Leong Wan Kok’s distinct post apocalyptic landscapes and alien creatures, to Lat’s charming look back at Malaysian life in the 1960s, from Mike Carey’s meditation on colonialism to Ken Foo’s dark visions of regurgitation and bodily transformations. Also contributing to the anthology are cover artist Shelly Wan and award-winning illustrator, Jon Foster.

Says Sonny, “Liquid City was an attempt to create some sort of joint enterprise that comics creators in the region could all participate in. The theme of cities provides some grounding but is also loose enough to allow the creators to pursue their own agendas.”

The comic book will run a total of 312 pages, wrapping up on 5 November. Until then, you can drool over the previews on the website.

Paperdoll Collection. Click image for more views.

At little while ago, I met the lovely Yilin Lu from upcoming label Yumumu. She was wearing a dress which was so fresh, pretty and sunny that I was instantly smitten. That alone was reason enough for me to go and check out her recently launched website.

Yilin graduated from Slade School of Fine Art in 2004, and is currently teaching Art in a public school. “My lack of formal training in fashion allows me to present a fresh take on garment-making,” she says. “My fascination with fashion began when I realized that everything that fashion stands for is overrated and underrated for very different reasons.”

Yilin enjoys moulding, draping and sculpting garments that bring alive the peculiarities of the wearer, drawing her inspiration not from fleeting trends but shifting ideas that are often overlooked. “Fashion designs are usually first conceived flat on paper. My Paperdoll collection (above) strives to retain that flatness. I’ve tried to avoid distender of any kind - pleats, gathers, etc. - to emphasize the intrinsic flatness of fabric, so much so that they have come to resemble the flatpack lifestyle we are familiar with. The simple form is reminiscent of the shift dresses of the 60’s. I am fascinated by how the flat garment radically transforms as it falls against the contours of the human body.”

MORE »

THE DESIGN

Click image for more views.

After living in Singapore for nearly five years, I finally started riding around the city on a bike. But due to the lack of an urban bike culture, cycling the streets of Singapore poses its own unique set of problems, not the least of which is the absence of cycling lanes and bicycle parking racks.

Industrial Designer, Adeline Thong created the kind of stylish and functional rack design the city needs, The Elevacion. Adeline explains: “Elevacion’s radial arrangement solves the problem linear racks have, where the slotting of bikes in between existing ones results in the tangling of pedals and unsightly slanted bikes. Specifically designed for West Coast Park, Elevacion cleverly takes on a motif of a sliding child, a sight often seen in the park.”

MORE »

Raj is an 18-year old aspiring Graphic Designer, specializing in 2D graphics, web, identity and print. “I found my passion for design at the age of 16 through Abode Photoshop, and I have been doing Arts and Design ever since. I now work as a freelance Graphics and Web designer and I am also studying graphic design at Lasalle, College of the Arts.”

About his illustration titled XII, Raj says, “The work focuses on time and power. It’s about a strong nation which grew over time and became very powerful … or even too powerful maybe? I titled my work XII basically because it is the biggest number in time (not counting 24 hours) and at the same time I wanted to incorporate the element of power, which was gained through both economic and military development. The giant clock represents how the power grew overtime and also gives the illustration a sense of perspective.”

THE ANIMATION

Click Image to watch the Trailer Ad.

‘Once Upon A Story’ is a trailer ad for an illustrated fairy tale book series that is yet to be written.

Creator, Adrian Chew explains, “The book will consist of the many fantastic fairy tales we used to read and listen to as kids. This series of illustrated novels is aimed at people who love illustrations and want to relive the memories of fairy tales. But they will not just be ordinary, traditional fairy tales … each story will be injected with a surprising twist.”

MORE »

THE DESIGN

Click image for more designs.

If you are in search of a cover that keeps your precious puter safe and warm at night, Furryrobo has got you covered. Their sleeves cleverly resemble a sleeping bag, and are made of 100% high density waterproof nylon and shock-absorbent quilted PE foam.

Founder and designer of whitedecay studio, Desmond Tan, designed the sleeping bags for Furryrobo, a multi-disciplinary design team that creates IT related products and other lifestyle accessories. Says Desmond: “The Mini Sleeping bag series is designed and built to fit the Apple MacBook Air, the MacBook and the Mac minis, and uses the construction of durable sleeping bags. We also have limited edition artist sleeping bags for MacBook and MacBook Air. The graphic illustrations for this edition are drawn and hand-screened.”

MORE »

Last Friday, I bumped into Josef Lee at the opening of Foon Foono’s solo exhibit, and we started talking about The Life Of Mann, a global online collaboration in creative storytelling. I had no idea that Josef was the driving force behind the comic series, so the very next morning, I sneaked a peak at the site, read all the way through the thirteen chapters and really enjoyed it.

The project is a collection of five-page stories that revolve around the main character, Mann. The first five pages -Chapter 1- were cranked out by Josef. Then a different artist picked up where Josef left off and continued the story. No one knows how the story will end. Each contributor must continue from where the other has left off. Today, there are already thirteen chapters, with a total of 65 pages by guest artists and writers from countries like Singapore, India, Austria, US, Sweden and Brazil.

Josef about his project: “I started off the story with Mann stranded on an island, with no memories of his past. He met someone who claimed to be his Guardian Angel and had just saved him from death. From that point onwards, Mann has traveled from the island to hell, then heaven, and the upcoming chapters will see him being stuck in limbo and trying to figure out the next destination. This project is fun because I gave absolute freedom to the contributing artists so even I will have no say in how the story continues. So long as the story can flow on logically from the previous chapter, basically anything goes.”

You can email Josef to volunteer as an artist or writer on the project.

THE ART

Click image for the panoramic view.

Escape To Rome (above) sprung out of Khairil Osman’s desire to create his own city of imagination. “It also happens to be the biggest piece I’ve ever worked on,” he adds. “At first it was just in a normal dimension, nothing spectacular, and then halfway through while I was working on it, I got a little excited and decided to do a panoramic view of what I’d imagine Rome to be as a fantasy and a magical place. I often find myself being connected to ‘nature’, combining and juxtaposing random pieces together. It makes me feel contented and free, being able to create a place from my imagination. This piece was inspired by nothing other than white horses. Initially, I wanted to do something just about the horses, but then I decided to have the horses as a focus of something else. And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, there’s a door at the side. I like to call that the portal from the other side of the world, leading to a fantastical Rome. ”

MORE »

THE DESIGN

Click for more designs.

Born in 1986, Josephine Xie graduated from LaSalle-SIA College Of The Arts with a Diploma in Fashion Design. About her Autumn/Winter 07-08 collection, Josephine says, ” I move with the minority, dominated by the right. I choose to live in my own world, second out by the norm. I hate routines and I make things that have no sense. I love my messy room and I never like cleaning up. I love pictures and I’m horrible with words. I’m good at misplacing things and I never remember why. I don’t define luxury by money or cars. I love roller coasters but I hate rules. I saved anything I think I might use one day and I love to pile.”

Josephine’s is putting the finishing touches to her Spring/Summer 08-09 collection, which will be available late October. “We are often confined into a space created by ourselves,” she explains. “When tempt provoked, where do we stand? My collection questions the being of human forms as opposed to what we have already created for ourselves. Men are women. Women are men. When it’s homeostatic, where is the difference?”

Utter Designs are available from Front Row, Level3.

THE ART

Motion Graphic Designer, Sheena Aw, worked for clients like MTV Asia and Sony International, creating on-air promos and corporate videos. In 2005, she won a PROMAX silver award for her HP QUEST contest spot for MTV Asia. In her spare time, Sheena enjoys doing graphic work. “I love creating characters, animating them and giving them a life of their own,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to create a set of vinyl toys. I hope that one day, both my toys and my art can be spread across the world, inspiring people and bringing joy into their lives.”

Earlier this year, Sheena produced the above piece for depthCORE Art Collective pack. “The theme was ‘Requiem’ which was a little tough for me since my style usually revolves around colorful, cute and annoying characters. But I gave it a shot anyway. So I created a piece that is somewhat dark and negative, but still maintaining the style of cuteness. In ‘Fly Away’ (above) the candycanes’ life came to an end, started decaying and rotting and then, eventually got holes in them. Their spirits flew out and carried what’s left in them (the peppermint bits), ready to move on to the next life.”