Author: IPW@JZSN

Hawker Colours: Melamine Tableware in Singapore

Hawker Colours: Melamine Tableware in Singapore

They refer not to the green of chendol or the red of mee goreng but the riot of colourful melamine plates and bowls in which many hawker dishes in Singapore are served today. Red, green, yellow, purple, pink, and more!

These colours defy conventional aesthetic sensibilities, and yet they have become entrenched in local hawker centres and coffee shops. Hawker Colours retraces their origins and mass adoption, and asks what value they still hold as the trade adapts to the changing needs of the city-state.

Read a feature about the book by The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao.

Published by In Plain Words / By Hans Tan Studio and In Plain Words / Designed by Currency

210 x 170 x 12 mm
175pp, 440g
Soft cover (Five colour options)
Published in December 2023
ISBN 978-981-18-8248-7

Stockists
Malaysia: Penang Book Island
Singapore: Basheer Graphic Books / Grassroots Book Room / Kinokuniya Singapore / Objectifs / Studio Yono / Temporary Unit

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This is Not a Food Magazine

This is Not a Food Magazine

The essays in this collection were first published on my now-defunct blog, Tuckshop, between 2015 and 2018. They are as much about men who enjoy cooking as they are about women who are expected to cook. They are about this nation, and its identity and development. This is not a food magazine. This is my contemplation on Singapore through the lens of food.

This second edition includes a poster insert of We Are The Colours We Eat, a collaboration between Sher Chew and Yin Shanyang to record the colour of Singapore’s hawker food.

Essays by Sheere Ng / Designed by gideon-jamie

178 x 115 x 6 mm (Book); 298 x 209 mm (Poster)
102pp, 102g
Soft cover
First published in 2018
Second edition published in 2023
ISBN 978-981-11-7815-3

Stockists
Australia: Slow Burn Books
Singapore: Temporary Unit
South Korea: Book Society
Spain: tabletimes
Taiwan: Mulu Office

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Striking! Advertising Matches from Singapore

Striking! Advertising Matches from Singapore

Stylish buildings, trendy logos, sexy figures, exotic cultures, modern forms, flamboyant fonts and more — explore Yeo Hong Eng’s “lit” collection of vintage advertising that fits on a palm!

With its rectangular and pocket-friendly form, matchboxes plastered with advertisements once offered an affordable and portable means of marketing. This collection of over 350 covers from Singapore—each reproduced true to size—captures the city-state’s colourful modernisation during the 1970s to 1990s. An accompanying essay on the history of matchbox production in Singapore along with seven curated themes reveals the many meanings and cultures emblazoned on each design.

Concept by Singapore Graphic Archives | Essays by Justin Zhuang and Gideon Kong | Collection by Yeo Hong Eng | Designed by gideon-jamie | Co-published by In Plain Words and Temporary Press

110 x 75 x 25 mm
400pp, 171g
Perfect bind
Soft cover
Published in April 2022
ISBN 978-981-18-4398-3

Stockists
Singapore: Objectifs / Temporary Unit
Thailand: Bookshop Library / Books & Belonging
South Korea: The Book Society
Japan: North East
Australia: Slow Burn Books
USA: Inga Bookshop

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Aesthetics Aside: Observations on Design in the Everyday

Aesthetics Aside: Observations on Design in the Everyday

From riding escalators in a city to chart its ascent to visiting a factory that manufactures plastic chairs used everywhere, this collection of 30 essays chronicle Justin Zhuang’s decade-long search for design in the everyday. Each offers a journey beyond the stylish “designer” world, on to the designed graphics, environments and objects that we encounter daily.

The essays cover four themes, including the nature of design, the histories of anonymous objects, as well as design and urban development in Singapore.

Design never looked so ordinary, and extraordinary.

Essays by Justin Zhuang | Designed by H55 Studio

180 x 110 x 18 mm
234pp, 188g
OTA Bind
Soft cover
Published in April 2022
ISBN 978-981-18-4284-9

Stockists
Singapore: Basheer Graphic Books / Objectifs / Studio Yono / Temporary Unit
Thailand: Bookshop Library / Books & Belonging
South Korea: The Book Society
Japan: North East
USA: Inga Bookshop

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Piracy and Design: Re-thinking Intellectual Property in the Third Industrial Revolution

Cover of Piracy and Design with postcards
Book with campaign postcards
Flag of the Design Piracy Institute
Postcards for the Design Piracy Institute
Piracy and Design (Singapore Edition)
Singapore edition

Piracy and Design: Re-thinking Intellectual Property in the Third Industrial Revolution

Knockoffs, fakes, and counterfeits are the bane of modern industrial design. They are unauthorized copies of designers’ intellectual property. They are the stolen profits of manufacturers. They are the products of piracy: a phenomenon wrecking an industry’s will to innovate and create “original” and “authentic” design. But to consumers, piracy offers affordable goods, diversity of options, and sometimes, even better design. Piracy isn’t black-and-white like a pirate flag, but a nebulous concept whose edges ebb and flow like the waves of the sea. What’s a copy to some is homage to another, what is original today is tomorrow’s evolution, what is piracy to the industry is competition to society.

How will we recognize piracy and intellectual property in industrial design with the rise of digital fabrication technologies like 3D printing? By democratizing access to the means of production, it will become easier for users to copy, remix, and self-repair objects in ways that traditionally infringe upon a designer’s intellectual property. This calls for a need to redefine what piracy means. In response to the digital revolution, some designers and manufacturers have strengthened protection over their designs via the law and technology, while others are opening up access to them, believing that design is a collaborative process that benefits from a community working on it together. Will the rise of open design see an end to piracy?

This thesis examines more closely the relationships between piracy, intellectual property, and industrial design by studying a variety of case studies and interviews with practitioners. Beyond just a legal and economic issue, piracy is a reflection of society’s assumptions about the design process, who a designer is, and what design is for. Piracy is a ghost that will always haunt the world of design.

By Justin Zhuang | Book Design by H55 Studio | Campaign Design by Melvin Tan and Darius Ou

79 pages
Soft cover
Published in 2015 as part of a thesis submitted to the School of Visual Arts in Partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts in Design Criticism.

Download the book for free.

INDEPENDENCE: The history of graphic design in Singapore since the 1960s

INDEPENDENCE: The history of graphic design in Singapore since the 1960s

The first-ever book tracing the evolution of the graphic design industry in Singapore since the former British colony emerged as an independent nation-state in the 1960s. Beginning at the arrival of modern design with the city-state’s nation-building plans, the book retraces how various of various small, independent studios broke out from the advertising industry. They grew over the next five decades, spurred on by changing national policies, economic conditions, technological shifts and societal trends. The book retells these histories chronologically alongside interviews with pioneering designers and an extensive album of designs from over the decades.

Read a feature about the book by Eye.

By Justin Zhuang | Design by H55 | Published by The Design Society

376 pages
Soft cover
Published in 2012
ISBN 978-201-27-8685-1

Stockists
Singapore: Basheer Graphic Books / Temporary Unit
Australia: Slow Burn Books

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By Design: SINGAPORE

By Design: SINGAPORE

What is design? This is a question that frequently popped up when putting together this publication. Many of our interviewees expressed (pleasant) surprise to be featured in a “design” publication, while some designers were sceptical about including less than professional work. Underlying these reactions is an assumption that “design” is extra (ordinary) and can only be created by those trained in it. This has led to the popular view that there are chairs, and then there are “designer” chairs—a binary view we seek to reframe with By Design: SINGAPORE.

Our compilation of 10 stories challenges the belief that design is only a stylish product and a tool for innovation. While such points of views have propelled its meteoric rise with industrialisation, design is ultimately a creative act necessary for living. We all carry this out when trying to overcome challenges in the environment. As the American design writer, Ralph Caplan, once wrote: “[D]esign is a process for making things right, for shaping what people need.” This was from his 1982 book, By Design, whose name we borrowed the name for our publication.

Another inspiration is from where we come from: the city-state of Singapore. In a speech to design students in 2018, its Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong explained that: “Singapore is a nation by design. Nothing we have today is natural, or happened by itself. Somebody thought about it, made it happen.” Designers in Singapore have no doubt contributed to this. We highlight some unexpected examples, including a prosthetic for a hornbill, several restored historic buildings and the effort to build high-tech “tropical” data centres. But we are also interested in how the rest of Singapore society has harnessed design as a process. For instance, local food hawkers have crafted new tools to prepare traditional delicacies for modern times, while its food technologists are inventing fresh ways of repackaging Singapore cuisine to the world.

In examining design as broadly as possible, By Design: Singapore shows how design is everywhere around us. It can be stylish. It can be innovative. But more than a consumer product or invention, design is an action each of us can take to make an impact on the world.

Table of contents

  1. A City for Nature by Justin Zhuang
  2. A Vernacular Sign Language by Vikas Kailankaje
  3. Huat Ah! by Justin Zhuang
  4. The Future of a City’s Past by Stephanie Peh
  5. New Ways, Familiar Tastes by Sheere Ng
  6. We Make This City by Don Wong
  7. Science of the Secondary: Rubber Band by Atelier HOKO
  8. Cooling Down This Hot Island by Timothy Misir
  9. Housing Singapore’s Smart Nation by Justin Zhuang
  10. Consider the Wok by Sheere Ng

The publication was supported by the DesignSingapore Council and first published for the Singapore Design Week 2019.

Concept by In Plain Words | Design by Modular Unit
230 x 125 x 9 mm
116 pages
Soft cover
Published in March 2019

Eating Together

Eating Together cover
Eating Together inside spread
Eating Together inside spread
Eating Together inside spread
Eating Together inside spread
Eating Together inside spread
Eating Together inside spread

 
Eating Together: The Design of Sharing Food in a Connected World

To eat together conjures up images of people gathered happily for a hearty meal. But sharing food is more than just that. A couple having lunch over a video conference call, residents dining at their neighbourhood kopitiam, and consumers across the globe eating and drinking from the same source countries are just some examples of how the world eats together today. These gatherings of people across differences—be it geographical, cultural, personal, among others—do not occur naturally, but are facilitated by design. Consisting of objects, systems, and spaces, design surrounds our food, meditating the relationships between people and their meals.

Eating Together examines these often overlooked designs to reflect upon what it means to share food as consumers, with family and friends, in the public, and even alone in this increasingly connected world. Through objects, speculative designs and installations, we invite you to look at eating beyond a mere delivery of food into our mouths, but as a consumption of values and cultures involving all our senses. Far from a state of bliss, eating together serves up issues that takes time to digest.

Read features about the book by art4d and an excerpt of the introduction in Design Observer.

By In Plain Words | Design by Studio Roots | Produced for FoodCine.ma

155 x 215 x 7 mm
57 pages
Soft cover
Published in May 2016
ISBN 978-981-09-9512-6

Out of print

When Cooking Was A Crime

 
When Cooking was a Crime

“Chamber pots as cooking pots. Blankets as fuel. Cooking was no easy task for those in prison. Moreover, it was illegal. But that did not stop male inmates in Singapore’s prisons and Drug Rehabilitation Centres (DRCs) during the 1970s and 1980s. Driven by the desires for a hot meal and a sense of freedom, they invented ways and means to “masak” with the little resources they had.

When Cooking Was A Crime offers a rare glimpse into the flavours of prison life based on the memories of eight former inmates. Through photographic recreations and interviews, it explores how food and cooking took on new meanings and tastes for those living behind bars.”

Read features about the book by The Straits Times, Wonderwall.sg, art4d, Singapore Noodles, and Atlas Obscura.

Research and Text by Sheere Ng | Photography by Don Wong | Design by Practice Theory

176 x 250 x 10 mm
128 pp, 300 g
French fold, OTA Bind
Soft cover with plastic sleeves
Published in November 2020
ISBN 978-981-14-8239-7

Stockists
Singapore: Kinokuniya / Objectifs / Temporary Unit
Thailand: Bookshop Library / Books & Belonging 
South Korea: The Book Society
Japan: North East
Australia: Slow Burn Books
Spain: tabletimes
USA: Inga Bookshop / Kitchen Arts and Letters / Draw Down Books / Hennessey + Ingalls
Taiwan: Mulu Office

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