"Stories From Our Wardrobe" was launched with the participation of creative contributors from the Design for Fashion Publishing team from the Diploma in Creative Direction for Fashion at LASALLE College of the Arts. The exhibition acts as a bridge that connects us with the objects in our wardrobes, providing a space where we can come together, read, and understand the stories of love, loss, and growth portrayed in each zine. This project, led by Pixie Tan as part of her Master's in Arts Pedagogy and Practice research, explores the links between collaborative publishing, materiality, and identity, and was co-facilitated with part-time lecturer, Felix Sng.
DESIGNING THE VINYL PRINTS FOR THE ZINE PUSH-CART
For the art direction of the push-cart, which will display the zines, posters, and act as an interactive space, I was in charge of designing the vinyl stickers for the exterior of the push-cart. Working closely with Pixie Tan, the project director, I went through many iterations of designs. My concept was inspired by different geometric shapes that portray unity and continuity, even with different shapes and sizes. I was also heavily inspired by the Bauhaus movement, which incorporated vibrant colors that adopt an abstract, geometric, and angular personality. In essence, just like Bauhaus's goal was to merge all artistic media into one unified approach, I wanted to create a design full of difference and unity.
MOODBOARD
FINAL DESIGNED ELEMENTS
BLANK LAYOUT OF THE PUSH-CART FROM DIFFERENT ANGLES
FIRST DESIGN ITERATION
My idea was to have a set of design elements at my disposal that could be repeatedly incorporated and even be morphed into a new element. I wanted the design to look like a complex piece of design, but in reality, it is just simple shapes and lines being tied together. There was also a set of colours that was agreed upon to be taken into consideration as our project's colour palette. The primary colours (blue, red) and secondary colours (green, orange) were chosen to simplify and unify the whole design system amongst other graphic designers. I tried to use as many elements as I could before it looked overkill. As vinyl printing could not detect effects such as opacity or colour layering, I had to focus on solid colours that have different intensities to create more depth.
SECOND DESIGN ITERATION
After back-and-forth consultations with my project director, I was informed of the budget and cost of vinyl printing. To tackle the situation, it was decided that the design elements used were to be narrowed down to only a few and pasted on one particular area of the push-cart to save cost. Unlike my first design iteration, this time it was decided to design the vinyl stickers as a spread, instead of a singular artboard. This reminded me of the time I did a similar thing with my zine, The Unbeatable Airwair 2976, where I found my initial design to be too poster-like, focusing on a singular page instead of designing with the spread in mind and focusing on continuity. And that was exactly what I focused on here for my second vinyl design iteration — A spread with continuity. The idea was to have the vinyl stickers pasted across the front door, the side of the push-cart, and the back door. So when we open both doors, it looks like one artwork, and when it is closed, the artwork is viewed as a singular artwork.
FINAL VINYL DESIGN FOR PRINT
The final design outcome was clean and vibrant, a minimal yet playful artwork to be pasted on the push-cart. It had to be timeless, or not look out of trend for a long time, as this push-cart would be reused for future students and exhibitions. This was a very meaningful experience for me, as this was my first time dealing with vinyl, and I was fortunate to be guided by a seasoned project director.
INSTRUCTIONAL POSTCARD
Apart from the push-cart, other materials like posters and postcards were also designed and printed. I used the same design elements and colours to incorporate them into the postcard. Using the same design elements was important to further solidify the overall design system of the project.
ASSEMBLING THE VINYL PRINT ON THE PUSH-CART
The fateful day. With the help of the vinyl craftsman, the stickers were pasted beautifully on a plain, wooden surface. Although wood isn't really an optimal surface, we managed to work things out and began assembling the cart with the signage and posters.
THE COMPLETED OUTCOME OF THE PUSH-CART
After weeks of hard work, the assembled cart was moved to Thryft, Peace Centre, for a pop-up exhibition to showcase and sell the zines. This was the result of the dedication and passion of the contributing creatives and the project director. Eventually, the cart was used for future batches of Diploma in Creative Direction for Fashion students and showcased at subsequent LASALLE College of the Arts Open Houses.
GLIMPSE OF THE POP-UP EXHIBITION AT THRYFT, PEACE CENTRE
GLIMPSE OF THE SHOWCASE AT LASALLE OPEN HOUSE 2024
