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Kenneth is a graphic designer based in Singapore, with works specializing in design research, branding, UI/UX, and editorial design.
Kalender Van Hong Kong Politiek
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This mini-project is an ode to the Dutch designer Jan van Toorn and his classic calendar series. Printed by Mart.Spruijt, his calendars proposed "a new form of engagement for graphic designers as a mediator and manipulator of photographic meaning." (Poynor). The neatly-categorized imageries, combined with an unknown 'recipe' for pictorial sequencing & composition, provides an elusive design object that leaves viewers with material for inquiry and interpretation.






Inspired by Van Toorn's belief of graphic designer's innate role as an interventionist: a subjective intermediator, this project tries to summarize and capture Hong Kong’s political events through a visual essay of found images (Shaughnessy). The calendar displays the faces of Hong Kong residents in these events; highlighting the city’s effervescent fight for independence; a tumultous fight against itself.






As a response to the epochal divide and partisanship, the project invites future citizen designers to engage graphic design as a mode of activism outlet to the complex problems of modern-day society: "to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable" (Lo).






Bibliography

Lo, Nikki Cheryl Shu Zhen. “The Spirit of Resistance.” LASALLE College of the Arts, 2020.

Poynor, Rick. “Jan Van Toorn: The World in a Calendar.” Design Observer, 23 May 2012, URL. Accessed 23 August 2021.

Shaughnessy, Adrian. Review of A Dutch battle that still rattles, Eye Magazine, vol. 23, no. 90, 2015, URL. Accessed 23 August 2021.
© 2024 KENNETH RORI. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. MADE IN SINGAPORE.




©  2024 KENNETH RORI. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. MADE IN SINGAPORE.