We aimed at a design that would be able to engage a well-travelled, smart reader, and best capture Singapore’s pulse with maximum wit and minimum graphic use. We turned to typography and pictograms in order to create a wordmark inspired by Singapore’s superb architectural monuments, where each letter in ‘Singapore’ is an original pictogram inspired by a real monument. For example, the ‘S’ can be traced back to the old Merlion sculpture, the state’s national symbol, while the ‘E’ stands for the famous Marina Bay Sands Hotel.
Connoisseurs of Singaporean culture will thus recognize the typography inspiration, while non-accustomed readers will be intrigued by the deeply Asian spirit of each letter. The text reads in English, but the experience of exploring the cover is much like an exercise in visual Singlish – the variety of English spoken in Singapore, which incorporates elements of Chinese and Malay.
