LOOK around you. This newspaper you're holding, the chair you're seated on, the lights above you. Design is all around us. Pervasive and influential, design is for everyone. For some, it is even life-changing.
Take, for instance, entrepreneurial undergraduate Tan Li Ling. Design is not only her life, but also her livelihood. Armed with a visual communication diploma, she set up design company Pickabull with a few of her then-classmates some years back.
Things looked promising in the beginning, when their self-designed company direct mailer garnered the team a bronze award at the Crowbar Awards in 2006, an event that showcases the best emerging creative talents in Singapore. But despite their evident talent, the jobs they worked on were largely low-paying, freelance commissions, with referrals by friends making up their client base.
'In Pickabull, we had to contribute a certain amount of what you earned back to it. Coupled with the fact that freelance jobs aren't exactly the best-paying jobs, we weren't earning much individually and eventually had to close down the company,' Li Ling reflects.
Undeterred, she toyed with the idea of running her own business again.
In June last year, together with a partner, Li Ling set up a blogshop selling photographs and custom-painted shoes. Her partner is the photographer, who shoots and prints photographs for their business, while Li Ling puts her illustration skills to use by painting shoes.
Typically, a pair of shoes takes a week for her to complete. Li Ling sketches out the designs on tracing paper first before transferring and then painting the intricate details and patterns onto the shoes. Each pair sells for around $25-$30, and she can make up to $500 in a good month, a tidy sum for an undergraduate.
Li Ling received her largest order to date at a flea market, where she was selling her shoes. An advertising executive walked up to her booth as she was packing up, and placed an order for nine pairs.
Like Li Ling, fellow student Joyce Mak holds a visual communication diploma. She was lost, however, about what she wanted to do after design school. 'I felt I wasn't sensitive enough to be a designer,' Joyce shares.
She tried her hand at an array of jobs ranging from art teacher, childcare supervisor to multimedia coordinator. It was at the last job, an administrative role, that her interest in design was revived. 'My boss at the administrative job would ask me to design posters and the like. I needed something that would build my confidence and allow me to explore and find myself as a designer, and that was the spark.'
Revitalised, Joyce went back to doing design by taking up a job at Web portal AsiaOne, creating websites and designing online marketing collaterals. It proved to be a good move. She took part in a money packet design competition conducted by paper merchant Antalis earlier this year, and her design (featuring a couple of cows dancing in a disco) won the top prize - and reassured Joyce about her decision.
Desmond Loh is another one who has found satisfaction in the field of design. As an IT computing graduate, his first taste of design was when he was tasked to design simple Web pages and Flash animations as part of his course. He developed an interest in graphic design from there, learning and honing his craft through tutorials online and self-initiated projects.
But it wasn't easy for Desmond to carry on in design without a proper portfolio or education. He applied for jobs and went around a few places without success, until the owner of an art gallery saw his zeal for design and took a chance, offering him a position creating catalogues.
Desmond grew from there and was given more challenging tasks to handle. Eager to gain experience, he moved on to a myriad of companies, coming up with things ranging from banners to exhibition layouts. He aspires to set up his own design business one day.
The virtual world has certainly played a pivotal role in encouraging the interest in designing. For Li Ling, it was a tool to showcase her creativity and make a living out of it, while for Joyce and Desmond, it ignited their interest at various points in their lives.
On a larger and wider scale, the online medium has made it easier for them and others around the world to express a common enthusiasm for design.
In seeking to better develop the designer in them, Li Ling, Joyce and Desmond found themselves signing up for the Bachelor of Communication (Communication Design) degree course offered by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) at the Singapore Institute of Management (SIM).
In Singapore, RMIT University provides the BDCD programme solely with SIM. A one-year course which has been running since 2002, the programme caters to the rising popularity of design-related studies to meet the needs of a burgeoning creative industry.
Becoming industry-ready is precisely what Li Ling, Joyce and Desmond, along with 40 other like-minded students, have been doing. They have been pushed in their creative and conceptual thinking by both their Singapore and Australian lecturers. The students also took in a study trip to Melbourne, where they attended classes at RMIT, visited an Australian farmhouse and participated in an international design conference.
All that has culminated in a unique graduation event that will take place next month. The event is unlike the typical graduation event which, along with the ceremony, puts on shows that tend to be placid displays of student works and focused on gaining employment.
Cheekily coined 'I have designs on you', the SIM-RMIT graduation event will serve as a platform for sharing and educating the larger public about design.
Invited guests, all leaders in their respective industries, will deliver insights and share experiences in a talkfest and workshops. Among the speakers are Chris Lee, from award-winning creative firm Asylum; and Ban Yinh Jheow, creator of the popular Stikfas action figures.
The 43 graduates are putting up a themed exhibition that discusses current issues like waste management and a declining birth rate.
'I am heartened by our students' courage to push the frontier by engaging the industry in a series of seminars and workshops on issues relating to design and creativity,' says Lee Kwok Cheong, SIM's chief executive. 'Design is part of our everyday life, so this event will be relevant to the public in exploring design.'
SIM's 'I have designs on you' will be held at Old School, 11 Mount Sophia from July 7-11. For more information, visit www.ihavedesignsonyou.sg
The writer is also an SIM-RMIT Bachelor of Design (Communication Design) student
