Boon Hau Tan - Campaign City: Life in Posters

Art and creative direction for Campaign City: Life In Posters, 2012.
Completed the art and creative direction for National Library Board Singapore's (NLB) flagship blockbuster exhibition in 2012, 'Campaign City: Life in Posters'.

The project followed the threads from an earlier exhibition, held years prior under the same name, on a smaller scale at Evil Empire Gallery, produced by Salon Projects with founder and curator Alan Oei. An exhibition that took months in the making, Campaign City was in inquiry into the unique and ubiquitous nation-building campaigns that have shaped the lives of denizens in Singapore, and the fate of the country from third world to first — amongst individual stories and national narratives. Alongside the historical retrospective, there was also a contemporary art intervention: 50 Singaporean artists of varying backgrounds, as well as in different stages of their careers, created new and comissioned artwork to respond to the campaigns that have altered their lives.

The scope of the work was to create a bespoke brand identity to present the exhibition — for the historical narratives, artwork and the design aesthetics to be melded down into a singular compound and forged into a deep, immersive experience. To do that, along with the curator, research editor and librarian academics, we delved deep into the archive at the NLB, unearthing loads of paraphernalia, national stories, and pulled at threads of anecdotes and chasing down hearsay with different generations of people; basically a lot of detective work.

In achieving the brand's look in its final form, I sought to look at historical mass social movements, revolution and war aesthetic studies, political artwork and artists, protest paraphernalia as well as anthropological/sociological perspectives through philosophical frameworks. Several threads were tested and pursued, including dystopian/utopian aesthetic, revolutionary, and a remix of nostalgic notable campaigns as seen below. The final form, in the end — a sinister, authoritative emblem torn in intervention to reveal the stories and papered over past — was influenced by the 2006 film 'Children of Men' by Mexican auteur Alfonso Cuarón and starring Clive Owen. The film was dystopian, and set in the very near future, so a lot of the universe in the film, is immediately recognisible and not too far into the future like Terry Gilliam's Brazil (also an influence). The "time-framing" of their aesthetic direction, informed the brand identity (framing the contemporary and future-projecting our near future paths) and also lent itself into the future enquiry part of the exhibition, which manifested in the artist-intervening artworks.

The brand identity served a functional purpose as well. Not just the books and collaterals are to be designed, but the aesthetic — which was designed to exude an oppressive and heavy-handed atmosphere, like its subject matter — was to serve as wayfinders and environmental visuals, as it occupied the public spaces in the NLB building. A major part of the exhibition was also its interactivity, which will be described in the other project suite, 'Campaign City: Life in Posters Exhibition'.

Campaign City Logos

Presentation slides, of the motifs and the corresponding campaigns, highlighting the more major ones like, productivity, "Speak Mandarin" campaign, courtesy and "Stop at Two".

Campaign City brand guidelines

Campaign City brand guidelines: environmental and media applications

Campaign City logo prototypes

Campaign City limited collectible monograph "bento" book

Book was made up of multiple components, held together in a tray. Items include small booklet volumes, a long, detailed historic timeline on Singapore's campaign history, a notepad and a box comprising the full 50 artwork stickers from all the artists.

Audience's Instagram pictures of the book, disassembled.

The back and front cover of the book volumes.

On the left, is a volume with the cover foil-stamped in a glossy silver, to effect a self-reflection for the reader, mirroring that volume's more introspective contents.

The historic fold-out timeline, in the monograph.

VIP Invites

Collectible postcard set, bound in branded bellyband

Front and back of the postcards.

MRT train platform environmental ads

Street banners

Street banners, with brand and event information on one side, and artist artwork on the other.

Selected artist artworks from Jampulets, John Clang, Sarah Choo, Brian Gothong Tan and myself, amongst others.