BOUNTIFUL KEYCHAIN (GOLD) – JONATHAN YUEN

The SG notebooks are a set of small and handy notebooks that highlight the use of our colloquial English. Each notebook revolves around a familiar local environment that has contributed significantly to the rise of Singlish vocabulary.

There are times when it’s difficult to convey a message to someone who has just lost a loved one or to just simply say, “I’m sorry” or “I love you”. These cards recreate the sender’s intended feeling visually through design where a worded message cannot. The series of cards rely heavily on visual effect, humour and fancy design effects were carefully measured to avoid turning the card into a gimmick and bordering on insensitivity.

Mooncake is a type of Chinese pastry traditionally consumed during the mid-autumn festival. They are usually filled with sweet lotus seed paste and salted egg yolk which symbolises the full moon. The Chinese characters inscribed on the mooncakes are often celebratory sayings or descriptions of the fillings they contain.

Taking the form of real mooncakes, the ceramic paperweight is a delightful and useful piece of stationery that stays fresh forever.

Each card contains a hidden wish, hope, or dream that is symbolically represented by a pair of delicate wings. When a card is bought, written, and given to another, the wings take flight and “come to life” — physically transported by air or sea as well as immaterially from the page into the mind and thoughts of the receiver. Card covers in these 5 emotions: sorry, thank you, congratulations, condolences, love.

The concept questions the basic assumption of a ruler as an accurate measuring instrument for an object. In this case, it is a measurement of the designer’s futile attempts at precision and perfection. He wishes to bring back a greater tolerance for imperfection and soul as technology is pulling the other way with measuring precision of near infinite decimal points. There were a total of fifteen attempts in sketching the ruler as accurately as possible.