Stanley Yap is the designer and photographer behind Life’s A Stage, a book by author Evelyn Teng. The work is a behind-the-scenes look at the art and lives of the opera performers of Ong Si Mui’s Troupe, one of the last Hokkien opera troupes in Singapore. It also reveals glimpses of a vanishing art and captures a part of Singapore’s cultural history.

The book cover is inspired by the script synopsis which hangs near the stage entrance of every street opera troupe, and comes with a safety pin bookmark.

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Joshua Tay is a freelance illustrator, looking to join a creative studio as a concept artist. In 2007, he was awarded second runner up in the Open Category of the Mangaka 07 Digital Arts competition. His work has been labeled as eastern influenced with a pinch of nostalgia.

“Are you going out with the dog again?, asks grandma.
“Yes, grandma. Just a short while”, San San replies.
“Don’t you know what time is it? It’s already so late! You are always walking the dog so late .. Why?!”, said Grandma, raising her voice.
“Well……”, San San doesn’t know how to reply.
Walking the dog? Is this even a dog? San San tried to take Mikey out for a walk in the afternoon before, but it got this nasty habit of gulping up pedestrians. The dog was rather cute initially, but is now getting a little out of control. Most recently, Mikey even ate San San’s boyfriend …
“I’ll be back in soon.” San San finally replied.

Ashley Yeo is a talented third-year Fine Arts student at LASALLE, graduating this May. She has a small but growing body of work that features some lovely paintings, drawings and sculptures.

Ashley has a penchant for Japanese visual culture, and likes to create work that reveals intimate engagements between fantastical characters. “I enjoy portraying secret chaos, and I attempt to embody beauty in a form of imperfection,” she adds. “I am also drawn to the unexpected, like how the cute is usually juxtaposed with gore in the recent uprising of pop surrealism, and I like the hidden factor of horror within beauty.”

The “10 aspects of death” is inspired by a project around the theme of Flight. “I was fascinated by the word Flight;  I guess I never really thought about death in that way, and it inspired me to work on a series around that theme. Flight is also indirectly linked to heaven, and I guess the route to heaven is through death …”

Click here to view the other works in the series.

Our friends at Kult Magazine have released a cool looking Year of the Tiger print by Mojoko. There’s a lot of things going on in this work, but it ends up looking really exciting.

You can either drool over it, or you can grab yourself a print for SGD$88 from the Kult studio at Old School 11D Mount Sophia.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Fendy Ibrahim is a second year Visual Communications student at Nanyang Technological University, School of Art Design and Media.

High speed photography, geometry and pure forms, make him tick. Pictured is Manifesto, an illustration that is an exploration of such aesthetics.

Fendy’s website shows a plethora of interesting projects. Be sure to check it out.

Show your laptop some love. Treat it to something funky, and hopefully in return it will stop freezing on you. Snupped sleeves might be the answer. Bang on trend, they combine hot colors with a selection of fancy patterns, catering to style-conscious laptop cognoscenti like you and me.

Snupped is the brainchild of two friends, Darcy and Bryan. “It started a couple of years back, when we bought our first laptops,” Bryan explains. “We had snazzy looking gear, but the laptop bags provided were dull and boring looking. So, we decided to make our own, and sewed our first sleeve out of a curtain.”

Every design that leaves their hands is unique. That is because every Snupped case can be fully customized. “Unlike most other cases which are manufactured by anonymous and automated factory machines, ours our handmade by real humans,” Darcy adds. “Hence, our cases contain a secret ingredient not found in other cases – Love.”

The boys have updated their line of sleeves with a Mini series for your mobile gear. Check it out!

(Top) Scrapyard by Tia. (Bottom) Sketch by Don Low.

Urban Sketchers is a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising the artistic, storytelling and educational value of location drawing, promoting its practice and connecting people around the world who draw on location where they live and travel.

The site showcases colorful stories behind the scenes, by volunteer correspondents in more than thirty countries around the world. Some are architects and illustrators, others are graphic designers, web developers, painters or educators, all sharing the same passion for drawing on location. They portray everyday life — from commuters on packed rush-hour subways to coffee drinkers at a sidewalk café, all quickly rendered by the sometimes furtive scratching of pen to paper.

Spearheading the Singapore USk site is Architect and Art and Design educator, Tia Boon Sim: “Since April 2007, I have been spending most of my Saturday mornings combing the streets in Singapore. I started a location drawing on Club Street after buying two beautiful sketchbooks and there is no stopping since.”

Developed by Catapult Advertising and supported by MICA, Good EyeDeer (GED) is an equal opportunities platform, which gives anyone with a potentially good idea an opportunity to actualize and see it come to life, debunking the myth that Singapore is creatively lack lustre.

“We want GED to be a platform for designers to launch themselves and enjoy some commercial benefits, but that’s not all GED is about,” explains Project Director, Serene Tan. “We’re keen on unearthing local talent, helping them come up with a viable business model, sharing with them our network and experience in marketing and branding so that can have some commercial viability to their work. But at the same time, what is driving GED is the importance of giving back to charities like the BAF and our own not-for-profit design project, HE.ART, and investing in the future of good local design.”

GED’s inaugural competition is its Great T-Shirt Hunt – a call for locals to design T-Shirts about or inspired by Singapore. The competition will culminate in a showcase of the winning pieces, which will subsequently be sold through various retail partners and an online store.

Click here for more details. The contest closes on 15 March 2010!