Tenth Anniversary Designs

TP Tie Design
TP Phone Card Design

TP Tie Design

Jason Ong was only in his first year at School of Design's Apparel Design & Merchandising course when he won in the Temasek Polytechnic's 10th anniversary competition. The product was a tie to symbolize the spirit of Temasek Polytechnic.

Said Jason, who graduated in 2002, "Yeah! I was excited. I didn't really place much hope because I was a first year student then."

With a brief from his lecturer, Mr Ali Mohd Bin Mill Mohd, the young aspirant proceeded with the design.

Ali said, "The competition was open to all students of Temasek Polytechnic. There were a panel of judges, (mostly) lecturers from the design school." In fact, Dr Prasad (former principal) was also involved in the selection process.

Said Jason, "The strips represent the adversities and difficulties that TP went through. The letters "TP" are in striking orange which stands for unity. There were also four small orange dots to represent the four schools then: ITAS, Design, Business, and Engineering. I'd added bright orange for that touch of vibrancy."

And for those simple dashes of colours, Jason walked away with $500 cash prize.
TP Phone Card Design

Come up with a unique set of phone cards for Temasek Polytechnic's 10th anniversary celebrations. That was the assignment -- TP-wide competition, in fact -- given by Mohammad Fauzi's lecturer.

And that task turned into an award. Said Fauzi, a 2000 TP graduate (Diploma in Visual Communication), "Seriously, I was taken by surprise when I was told that I have won."

The design featured a pair of upturned palms. Each card carried its own language and colour.

Said Fauzi, "The hand came across my mind as a universal language associated with identifying 10. For instance, 10-year-old kids showing both their palms when asked about their age."

The simple idea won the hearts of the judges. Said Fauzi, "Its directness is in conveying the message, I guess…"

The whiz kid took only five minutes to do the visuals for the competition. He explained, "In design, the difficulty lies during the conceptualizing stage. Once you overcome that, with a strong concept or idea, it's just a matter of adapting or applying them to different uses/languages."

So what inspired him? Laughed Fauzi tongue-in-cheek, "Sorry, trade secret. I can tell you but I will have to kill you."

Well, that's Fauzi, the spirited chap who loves to tease!
*Picture of the tie, courtesy of SDAD's Rahayu