An eventful start in Singapore: Italian film culture & Singapore fashion
What we have been up to since arriving in Singapore? HEAPS we couldn’t catch our breath! We’ve been invited to countless of events. We attended the opening of the Italian Film Festival, presented by the Italian Cultural Institute Singapore on 24 October 2012 for a special screening of the documentary Italy: Love it, or Leave it.
The documentary told the tale of 2 Italians disillusioned by the state of their country in its economy, politics, culture and especially the state of corruption and unemployment and have decided to give themselves 6 months to travel around the country (in many funky vintage Fiat 500s) to catch the last glimpse of whatever beauty is left of their country before they came to a decision about moving to Berlin for good.
The directors were even present at the premiere for a Q&A session where many Italians now living in Singapore posed many thought-provoking questions to the directors about the ending of their documentary. Whether they stayed or left, you’ll have to catch the film to find out.
We even met up with the 2 filmmakers Luca Ragazzi and Gustav Hofer who also starred in their documentary.
Then we were treated to a culture of another kind: fashion at the STYLE: WEEK Multi-brand fashion show at ION Orchard 28 October 2012, the finale event of STYLE: magazine‘s annual fashion bonanza. We even managed to creep backstage and see all the stylists and models in action. The show was colourful to say the least but so were some of the guests.
We were also invited to the Grey Goose Guild Party at Alkaff Mansion on 15 November 2012. GREY GOOSE®, the World’s Best Tasting Vodka hosted a night of luxury, glamour and fashion as guests enjoyed the designs of award-winning silversmith Carolyn Kan of Carrie K., designer Priscilla Shunmugam of Ong Shunmugam and Zin Catell of Menswear Menswear. More fashions on the catwalk ensued.
We still got more fashion at the launch party of new fashion portal www.styleXstyle.com at Dominic Khoo’s 28th Fevrier where Singapore’s fashionistas turned out in full force. There was also a fashion show with some local labels presenting their collections – SATURDAY, Elohim, Mae Pang and Ong Shunmugam. Check out the video of the launch party as captured by the FREE newspaper Today.
In 2013, we hope to bring you more coverage of our adventures in Singapore. In the meantime, you can follow our Creative Director, Alvin Chia on Twitter @alvincheer to keep up to date about our movements in Singapore.
We’re heading to Singapore…for good!
Thank you Melbourne for the many fun and exciting marketing work that have come our way, but sadly, it’s time to take our marketing experience up a few notches, north and upwards towards the equator of the sunny shores of Singapore!
We will continue to share with you our adventures in marketing when we get there, so do continue to drop by.
Putting the art into shopping (and vice versa)
People mostly associate art with appreciation and even if you’re the kind who frequents auction houses, you’re not likely to think of collecting art as a shopping experience. With the proliferation of the gallery shop at major galleries and museums where “art” souvenirs such as postcards, books and novelty items are sold, it’s no longer strange for art-goers to pop by the gallery shop after seeing the art exhibition for a bit of retail therapy.
For us, no one has come as close as the Auckland Art Gallery to put this increasingly intimate relationship between art and shopping into words as cleverly as the copy on their paper shopping bag below, when we popped into their gallery shop to pick up a postcard of Robin White’s painting Fish and Chips, Maketu 1975. Nothing short of brilliant.
Awesome Auckland: Our visual diary
Auckland has almost become an annual design and ideas prigrimage-type destination for us as we’ve visited every year since 2010. This year, Auckland didn’t disappoint, judging from the snaps that we took. See the sights through our eyes below.
We’ve seen our fair share of big budget exhibition stands that turn out to be the tacky big hair equivalent of beauty pageant contestants. Sometimes (in fact, at most times) less is more, so we were quite delighted to see this attractive stand at the exhibition LavOra Diversamente (Work Differently Now) during our last trip to Florence, and if you examine its individual elements, the stand was constructed rather simply and tastefully.
A well-designed backdrop, interesting use of graphic design and fonts, well-positioned cubes and lighting when put together were the elements that really drew our attention to the stand. The other thing that also caught our eye was the exhibition’s bright yellow tote bag with the exhibition logo’s smart typography printed on it.
GIVEAWAY: Travel wallet and business card holder
We come across many cool ideas and items through our course of work and travels, so here’s one or two for you! We’re giving away a travel wallet and business card holder to help you get organised during those hectic moments checking in at the airport and at the customs.
Simply leave a comment, leave us a tweet at @ideasdispenser or just email us at ideasdispenser@gmail.com, and the winner will be picked at random. Apologies that this giveway is only valid for Australian residents. Good luck!
Celebrating 100 years of Swiss graphic design
We simply cannot get enough of Swiss graphic design, and judging from these brochures that we picked up in Zurich when we were last there to catch the “High-rise: Idea and Reality” exhibition at the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, can you blame us?
Brochures from the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich
There’s just something clean, crisp and controlled about the way the Swiss use imagery, photography, typography, colour and composition in their graphic design that makes their work so visually delicious. And to further heighten our infatuation with Swiss graphic design, the museum is currently running the exhibition “100 Years of Swiss Graphic Design“. From posters, advertising, signage, packaging and many other types of printed matter that involve graphic design, the exhibition presents a stellar selection of works that inspire us to produce our own design work that will have the same impact when viewed 100 years from now.
Even though, we’re not able to see the exhibition, thankfully, the museum has uploaded online images of the exhibition which you can view here.
We’re really dying to get our hands on the exhibition book or even any one of their posters. Here’s hoping that they will still be available the next time we visit the museum.
P.S. We forgot to mention that apart from Swiss graphic design and the exhibition, we’re also big fans of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich. We’re following it on Facebook and Twitter and we simply love the modernist building that it’s housed in.
