Remember last week’s post where we revealed the next journey of IMPRINTS? IMPRINTS will be heading to the National Museum of Singapore, 4 December 2010, together with the Little Thoughts Group.

Ever wonder who the Little Thoughts Group are? They are a collective of product designers who are looking for a perfect reason to break free from their day-to-day professions.

In this post, the designers from the Little Thoughts Group will be sharing with us their inspirations and ideas that will prepare them for the upcoming exhibition, IMPRINTS: Designing for Memories.

Let us take a look at what is going through their mind….

Alvin Sitoh
Designer & Co-Founder, Sketch Design Consultants Pte Ltd

Turning “Tek-ko’ into a Fashion Statement

Take a walk around the local residential heartlands and you’ll never miss the trademark mass display of personal laundry drying on bamboo poles (or ‘Tek-ko’), which abruptly stick out of the residents’ home. The local housing designs have perpetually changed over the years to try and conceal the visibility of these “laundry parade”, which many consider to be hideous and unflattering to our contemporary architectures. However, we recognize that it is also a part and parcel of our very own local lifestyle that has existed since the nostalgic living habits of the old kampong days,
I choose to see it from a different perspective and the thought has inspired me to try and create beauty out of the ugly – something that we can easily recognize as a trademark and a (local) fashion statement of Singapore.

Len Lim
Designer, lendaiYan

Reminiscence

Few months back, I happened to speak to an architect who was browsing through some furniture at my temp-job store and I asked what inspired him in his work. He said:
“You use the word inspired, maybe this is not the right word for me. It is not exactly an idea triggered by something, object or people but more of a reminiscence, something that you put together from your memory, your history. It is about what you received, perceived and do something with it in your own way. “
Indeed, we all need a little reference to start somewhere.

I love seats, nice simple seats.

Kittichai Reawsanguanwong (Naa)
Designer & Co-Founder, Sketch Design Consultants Pte Ltd

Chinese Chess BookShelf

My memory of our local coffee shop has always been about the rich aroma of ‘kopi’ fragrant and the common sight of people crowding at one corner to watch ongoing games of Chinese Chess. I’m always fascinated by how the surrounding crowd can observe the etiquette of keeping absolute silence as they watch the chess masters concentrates in every move of the well-crafted chess pieces.
I always love the build-up of that nervous atmosphere as more people joins in to watch, especially when I’m one of the player – it helps to spur my desire to win and I always imagine my opponent to be more nervous. Can you imagine the crowd if we have a larger chessboard? Hence, I have the idea of integrating this classic chess game as a part of a bookshelf furniture, which will have a big Chinese chessboard to give more watching space and to play any time.

Chris Lim
Industrial Design Manager from Hewlett-Packard Singapore

This is a Design of a Tiffin Carrier

In the past, many of our favourite past time was outdoors, and the Tiffin carrier was an icon of what life was like then. Going to the beach was a big adventure and packing food was the highlight of the trip. The humble Tiffin carrier was for the transportation of food, it represented good home cook best of the best mom’s recipe. The Tiffin carrier; also use in many cultures, accommodates all types of food. My effort here is to bring out the goodness of the Tiffin carrier to the new generation. Today this generation Y has a different meaning to outdoor fun. They are more active, climbing mountain, trekking and camping are but some of the fun activities. Redesigning the Tiffin to bring out the fun of the past to meet with the new life style of the present is the impetus for this design.

Tai Woon Woon
Design Consultant, Dell Computer

Want to play ping-pong?

“I have fond memory of playing Ping-Pong with my friends in my childhood days.
I used to get up very early in the morning and rush to the school just to “chop” the table. If you are late, you can only play with yourself against the wall. In fact that’s how I train myslef at home – push the dinning table against the wall and start playing. But I used to get some scolding by mother because after a while, the paint on the wall start falling apart.” Tai Woon explained. We are very curious what kind of ping-pong table Tai Woon is going to propose.

Stay tuned for part 2 of this post to find out more about what the other designers are thinking!