For the House; Against the House 2023: _____ is Dead Publication

2023

For the House; Against the House returned for the Singapore Art Week 2023 with two new motions up for debate. Through a unique debate format where art illustrates the arguments, OH! worked with collectors to present selected works from their collections alongside new commissions from Singapore and international artists.

Set to _____ is Dead, the third iteration of the show presented a double bill explored the mortality of two cherished concepts The Museum is Dead and Desire is Dead conceptualised by Singaporean curators John Tung and Adele Tan respectively. Taking place within Tanglin Shopping Centre – a mall scheduled for enbloc – the exhibitions’ manifestation at the site went beyond their topics of inquiry, revealing the entanglements between Singapore’s ubiquitous shopping malls and our cultural identity.

We designed a bold neon-inspired brand identity system for the third iteration of this event to reflect the two curatorial experiences within the same show. Whilst dystopian, the system is actually highly palatable within the context of the soon-to-be torn down mall, legible amongst the corridors and transporting visitors back to a different time period. The goal for the branding was also to open the brand to a younger generation and more diverse audience.

Accompanying the exhibition is a catalogue we designed in hopes to create mindset shift from a print material existing simply being a passive catalogue, to an active capture of this inflection point in time. The cover design introduces the concept of dislocations, with the title balanced within a working LED panel in a careful composition against a powerful full black cover. The changing colour bars echo this transient narrative, putting the viewer on the outside looking through the curtains of time.

Shaping Singapore Through Urban Design

2024

Urban design shapes Singapore's urban fabric, developing distinctive and liveable areas–flat plots of land are developed into vibrant young towns, and mature estates are rejuvenated to add new vigour, industrial and innovation districts are reimagined with people-friendly accessible areas, while rivers are transformed from pollutive industrial areas into convivial live, work and play precincts.

As a contextual disciple, urban design evolves from and relies on close partnerships between the public, private and people sectors. Commissioned by the Centre for Liveable Cities Singapore, Shaping Singapore Through Urban Design highlights Singapore's unique approach to urban design and its role in developing the cosmopolitan island nation that we see today through case studies on Bedok Town Centre, one-north and the Singapore River.

The publication's design aims to provide readers with a compelling and keenly personal ‘Singaporean’ story through an informative experience that visually represents the dynamic transformation of urban spaces within the nation. This is reflected through the use of vibrant colours, dynamic layouts, and incorporating specific visual elements such as maps, photographs, or illustrations that highlight the key features of each case study.

Read e-publication here.

Tech For Good Institute

2023

The Tech for Good Institute (TFGI) is a non-profit founded by Grab, Southeast Asia’s leading superapp, aimed at creating dialogue, research and communities to harness the promise of technology and its full potential to uplift lives in Southeast Asia.

To enable a thriving tech ecosystem in Southeast Asia committed to advancing sustainable growth, the Institute seeks to create an attractive platform for respectful diversity of thought and encourage three types of conversations, namely building understanding, appreciation and literacy of emerging issues within the tech ecosystem, bridging countries’ unique experience to shared challenges and opportunities, especially on transnational issues, and lastly creating a platform for the many voices from the Southeast Asian region.

FACTORY established a holistic brand language, complete with a data visualisation system for TFGI to convey its methodology, impact, and more importantly its robust credibility via many touch points. The new look and feel seamlessly captures the essence of technological advancement and the excitement of progress by introducing a modular graphic system that facilitates diverse story hierarchies, as well as a fresh colour palette and animatics that is forward looking and human at the core.

The full extent of TFGI's brand personality extends throughout the presentation of information as well. We designed standards for the consistent presentation of charts, diagrams, iconography and other infographics that scale across a full range of digital and print applications. Graphs and diagrams were built using this modular language, with graphic liveries inspired by the form of the brand mark employed as patterns for additional visual interest, making complex information accessible to a lay reader.

Associate Artist Programme (AAP)

2023

OH! Open House is Singapore's leading art institution that develops curatorial programmes on site-specificity centred around the neighbourhood - people, places, stories - as the unit of exhibition and representation. In 2022, OH! Open House launched its inaugural artist residency, the Associate Artist Programme (AAP). Centred around the neighbourhood — people, places, and stories — the first edition took place in Kampong Gelam over a one-year period with five local and three international artists, connecting artists to local communities, businesses and historical places. This programme serves as an alternative model and offers neighbourhood immersion, curatorial support, peer-to-peer dialogues and engagements with communities.

Signposts are ubiquitous in the neighbourhood, guiding residents and visitors alike. They tell stories of where to go, what to explore, and what's significant in the area. The branding we've designed takes inspiration from these signposts, leveraging on their symbolism of direction and guidance, evoking a sense of navigation and discovery.

Typography stacks are used in a clean and organised manner across all branding materials. They create a sense of depth and storytelling, with each layer representing a different aspect of the residency - the artists, the community, and the neighbourhood itself. This approach invites viewers to delve deeper into the narrative, whilst the clean design aesthetic ensures that the messaging remains clear and accessible for all.

Event images courtesy of OH! Open House.

IMPACT 2023

2023

The inaugural IMPACT 2023 x Design Research Forum, held in conjunction with the Singapore Design Week 2023, explores the profound impact of design research and fostering meaningful connections between design researchers and industry professionals. It is Singapore’s first gathering of design researchers from 13 Singapore esteemed design institutions of Higher Learning, helping to define the role and potential of design research in Singapore and beyond.

As the creative partners of this forum, we created an identity that symbolises the transformative and ever-evolving impact of design research across diverse fields and industries. The brightly coloured look and feel evokes the visual world of design and the excitement of progress that research brings. The branding introduces a new modular word mark that is constantly evolving between the stages of rationality(square) and innovation(circle). The powerful key visual is crafted through this networks of squares and circles; animated diagrams morphed in as containers of information and also to create additional layer of depths. Beyond digital mediums, the adaptive nature of the key visual is further flexed across a hyper-interesting die-cut brochure that takes on a non-conformist form, where custom layouts help create pacing, space and narrative for the content.

C2A Creative Communication Awards 2024 — Best of Best 2024 / Branding / Brand identity

Esplanade Annual Report 22/23

2023

An architectural icon with distinctive twin shells, Esplanade is one of the busiest arts centres in the world. Since opening in 2002 as Singapore's national performing arts centre, they have presented more than 53,000 performances and activities, drawing 34 million patrons and 116 million visitors. We were commissioned by Esplanade to design their annual report for the 2022/2023 financial year.

The cover and main section dividers features Wax and Wane, an artwork by urban art collective Rscls that is commissioned in conjunction with the opening of the Singtel Waterfront Theatre at Esplanade and the centre’s 20th anniversary celebrations. As the name suggests, we took inspiration from the metaphor of the moon's phases and used it in a central role across our design motifs. Just as the moon goes through cycles of waxing and waning, the centre has experienced seasons of growth and change through the pandemic years till today. This metaphor is a powerful way to symbolise the theatre's journey over the past year.

Our primary goal was to create an engaging report that aims to be more than just a collection of financial data and statistics. We want it to be a reflection of the centre's vibrant spirit, rich history, and commitment to artistic excellence. To achieve this, we've employed a visually stimulating design that captivates the reader's attention from the very first page. The use of vibrant colours, dynamic layouts creates a sense of excitement and anticipation, much like attending a performance at the theatre. Drawing inspiration from the theatre's iconic 'durian' shaped architecture, we've also created many 'easter-egg' durian motifs shaped into characters and objects that are spread across infographics helping to convey complex information in an easily digestible format. All in all, the report's design aims to leave a lasting impression on readers, reminding them of the theatre's enduring magic and importance in Singapore's cultural landscape.

Read Annual Report here.

DNA Paris Design Awards 2024 – Winner

ADM Undergraduates Prospectus 2023/24

2023

This issue of the ADM prospectus is a unique one that comes in two parts, a circular (alumni feature) and a square (admission information) book that when joined together, they form a complete X, symbolising the intersection of different disciplines and perspectives across various art, design and media fields, an echo to the School of Art, Design & Media and its distinctive Design Art and Media Art programmes.

As with most creative fields, what the audience sees and appreciates is often just the final outcome. Few sit to ponder on the importance of how the creativity process inspires and changes the way people see and feel. The alumni feature showcases stories of illustrious alumni from every single batch since its inception till date across all six majors, and celebrates the various propellers of their creative practice and how ADM has played a role in their journey till date.

The ADM prospectus is not just a book, but it is also an object of art in its own right. It is a statement about the power and beauty of multidisciplinary creativity, inviting readers to engage with the book not only as a source of information, but as a sensory and aesthetic experience.

Featuring alumni Alecia Neo, Davier Yoon, Esther Wang, Manoj Prabhoda Chandran, Daryl Goh, Lim Qi Xuan, Annette Lee, Clifford Loh, Gerald Chin, Tan Xin Hui, Toby Tan, Jake Tan, Melodie Edith James and Marc Yap.

Accolades
iF Design Award 2025 – Winner
C2A Creative Communication Award 2023 – Best of the Best
DNA Paris Design Awards 2024 – Winner

ADM Show 2022

2022

The year 2022 has seen the world adapt to new ways of living & thinking as it emerges from the pandemic. ADM Show 2022: & Beyond presents the works of design and media graduates from the Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Design and Media, questioning the status quo and how society can be driven towards enacting new solutions conceived through creativity and beyond.

Drawing upon our vast experience in designing for the school, and this being its first major event held in the heart of the city since the start of the global pandemic, we set out to create a brand identity which supports this bold vision. Utilising typographic strategies through repetition, depth, layering and movement, we created a visually striking three-dimensional, super-scale identity that is constantly adapting and morphing into whatever space it is applied on across all print, digital, video and spatial mediums. The bold, intense nature of the black exemplifies the geometric beauty of the identity whilst set against the joyful and exuberant neon yellow and magenta, helping to establish an expressive and evocative visual personality for the show.

Visit website here

Accolades
iF Design Awards 2025 – Winner
Taiwan International Graphic Design Awards 2023 – Distinction
Red Dot Design Award 2023 – Winner
DNA Paris Design Awards 2023 (Communication Design)– Winner

The key ethos of “& Beyond” is expanded to form pathways and huge environmental graphics within the exhibition space, directing visitors to the various venues on site. Through an innovative use of the brand colours as a tool to demarcate spaces, which in turn creates narrative windows, the colours paint the corridors and functions as containers for the two separate Design Art (yellow) and Media Art (magenta) pathways. This flexible and experiential approach also allowed us to create immersive experiences like a spectrum entryway that commands the front-of-house, as well as psychedelic stairways which links the two floors of the exhibition space. The result connects directly to the visual identity and also creates a sophisticated harmony for exhibition experience.

A full fledged digital experience was launched to accompany the physical exhibition. The landing page serves as a visual echo to the theme of “& Beyond”, drawing visitors in to the content pages, which were designed such that they formed a colour coding system for easy navigation. We also wanted to turn user preference into engagement by incorporating targeted filter modules as well as a 'Favourites' system, where users could generate shareable links from portfolios they found interesting.

New World’s End

2022

New World’s End is a new immersive art experience & audio tour organised by OH! Open House that brings the old 1960s Singapore back to life through a stunning journey that marries stories, history and art; down the streets of the historic Jalan Besar, its back alleys and into hidden rooms & fantasy spaces with its backdrop. We were approached to brand, design its Front-Of-House, and craft the website that would help to launch this. The experience opened to great fanfare that saw sold out crowds leading to the end of the year.

Buy tickets to the physical experience here.

Accolades
Graphis Silver Award, Poster Annual 2023

We embarked on a period of research to identify the key emblems, landmarks, characters and stories that would define the rich tapestry of this historic area in Singapore. Through illustrations, we depicted the environmental images, archival photos, snapshots of characters to give the key visuals a friendly, approachable persona which is immersive and powerful at the same time. These elements were framed around the two central key characters of Rosa and Kiran: two seemingly ordinary people whose lives were changed forever by momentous events that took placed in the New World Amusement Park.

OVOL: The best packaging boards in town

2022

OVOL is a leading paper and material supplier in Singapore. We were commissioned to design a poster to promote their newest range of environmentally friendly packaging boards which caters for everything from food & beverages packaging, boxing up ice creams, sending items in the post, packing medication to luxury cosmetic packaging and everything in between.

By stacking examples of packaging done using this paper range into the shape of an award trophy, we provided a charming juxtaposition to the tagline: The best packaging boards in town. We boldly went for a 'blank canvas' look, resulting in an imaginative and powerful visual theme for the poster.