A bit of trivia before we start…

Did you know...

  • The entire logo design process took about 5 months from brief to completion: ideation began in late Nov 2017 and finalised in April 2018.
  • More than 50 ideas were explored before close to 20 were presented for initial consideration.
  • Two designs were shortlisted. One was by another brand agency. The other, from us.
  • The other logo contained an additional graphic element, while ours was a “logo” within the theme itself. 
  • Both logos went through at least 2 voting rounds and a closed poll with selected members of public.
  • The logo left standing went through various intense open critiques where all possible (positive and negative) public reactions were considered and debated. This was to make sure we take into consideration sensitivities and context that may have overlooked.
  • After fine-tuning, the logo went through a closed online survey to gauge reaction. This gave valuable insights about how Singaporeans from all walks of life and age groups feel.
  • Finally, the logo went through numerous adjustments, and was tested in all formats, sizes and backgrounds, before it was officially “born”.

 

Intense eh? Well, designing a logo for a national event was not going to be easy.
On top of that, there were interesting constraints to navigate. Here were some of the challenges we faced:

Seeing Stars:
When it comes to designing an NDP logo, a “star” is a “star” and shouldn’t look like anything else. We quickly learnt that any graphical depiction of the “stars” of our National Flag must be in their correct proportion, and most importantly, coloured in white. (That would mean any stars we create need to either have an outline, or appear on a coloured background for the white to be visible.).

Why? Because stars are a common and popular graphic element that are also used by other countries as well as organisations. That means they carry a multitude of meanings in other context, from religious to sports to political. Any graphic stars we create, in colours other than white or shape and proportion other than the official shape of the stars in our National Flag, may be easily viewed as symbols for other countries or groups. The same goes with the Crescent moon.

The logo is publicly-owned, not just an agency vision
We humbly learnt that a national logo of this scale has to be owned and embraced by all Singaporeans of all ages, race, gender. What this means is that the typical creative ideal of wanting to use the most modern typography, or have a logo project some sense of wittiness/cleverness, for example, do not apply. We can use the trendiest font in the world, but that means nothing to the public at large. (My favourite test is called the “father-mother test”. If the logo can be understood by my dad and mom, then it’s a go! Talk about getting approval from parents all over again!).

That also means we have to put our creative egos aside, and truly put ourselves in the shoes of the public. And you’ll be surprised at the various concerns that the public have when it comes to critiquing a logo. Some prefer it to be more celebratory (e.g., with fireworks, confetti, handwriting fonts), some prefer it to be more stately and sombre, while some don’t think that we need a new logo for NDP every year (they have a point!).

And guess what? They have a right to their opinion and preference, because this is a logo owned by them as well. And we respect that. As such, we realised that any logo with a concept that needed to be thought through at first glance before being understood, no matter how clever it may be, do not generally stand the test of the majority of the public. Which leads us to the next point: keeping it simple.

Simplicity: designing to un-design
With so much happening at NDP, it was extremely important to keep the logo as simple as possible, both in the conceptual angle, as well as for the purpose of adaptation (see “Flexibility” below). Simplicity does not mean not giving a damn.

What it means is that we do not over-complicate things for the sake of it, and create something that looks complex, just to show off the amount of effort we put in, or the immense technical skills we have. Being simple means removing all elitism of being a clever designer, and think like everybody else. It is about designing with the objective to un-design. It’s about being as real and as relevant to everyone as possible. Simplicity that is well thought through is paradoxically the most complex.

Extreme flexibility required
The scale of NDP is enormous. The entire ecosystem included a wide array of sponsors, government and private organisations, as well as all forms of media, both in print as well as digital. As such the logo needs to be extremely flexible (and I mean EXTREMELY!) so that it can be applied to a wide variety of mediums and format, in a wide variety of sizes and colours.

On top of that, this years’ logo also need to have the potential to build up the backstory featuring individual aspirations (via the “i am…” narrative). From appearing as a mono-coloured logo on a sponsored pen the size of 5cm x 1cm, to full colour on a large format screen, the logo needs to be used everywhere effectively without losing resolution, details or colour.

A logo that is too complex (read: more than 2 colours, with many lines and shapes) will not be visible at all when shrunk, and that spells trouble. Which of course, leads us back to the third point above: keeping things simple.

 

 

The making of the NDP 2018 logo.

Ok, now that we’ve gotten the challenges off our chest, it’s time to share how we navigated all the above. Here’s the backstory of how the NDP 2018 logo came to life…

One thing you’ll realise this year, is that the logo does not really qualify as a “logo” per se. There was no additional graphic element, and the entire “logo” was the theme itself. This has much to do with the strength of the theme.

The brief came to us in end November 2017, with an in-depth sharing of the theme – “We Are Singapore” – by NDP Creative Director Boo Jun Feng. The first impression we got was “Mmm… isn’t the title of the classic NDP song?”.

But as Jun Feng took us through his thought process, we slowly realised this was a theme with a difference. There were great human and emotional depth in the narrative and backstory. It was not just crowing about us being “Singapore”, but how Singapore is defined by every individual Singaporean’s dreams, aspirations and hopes. Collectively, we shape Singapore. Without us, there is no country.

It was a truly heartfelt vision. And we were determined to justify it through the logo design.

The initial exploration.
Our first foray took us into all kinds of angles and approaches, from classic NDP-style logos to clean cut typography, from modern to retro touches, from fun and dynamic to more stately and sombre, etc.

Over 50 angles were explored. From that, we picked about 20 to present to the NDP branding committee for initial consideration and comments. If you look closely at the photo above you will realise that the first version of the official logo was already taking shape. Here’s our thought process in developing that…

This year feels truly different.
At the back of our minds, we were always aware that this year’s theme was different from previous years’. To start with, it was also a powerful verbal statement, not just a tagline.

There was also a strong backstory that led to the theme: individual expressions of aspirations, hopes and dreams form the prelude to the theme. “WE ARE SINGAPORE” was the emphatic culmination of collective “I AM…” voices.

The first instinct was to preserve the theme as much as we can, because of the strength of the statement it was making. That meant going for a typographical version of the theme. But typography itself may not be interesting enough.

At this point, we also studied all the past NDP logos to see if anything similar has been done…

What we discovered was that every single logo of the past contained a additional graphic or element that helmed the tagline. None took the pure typographical route. Dare we be different this year?

A big step to defy convention.
This time round, we decided to take a different approach. But we knew the risk. We were breaking away from decades of convention.

But we stuck to our guns. With “WE ARE SINGAPORE” being such a strong voice, we felt that the logo should be the theme itself, or reside within the statement. We didn’t want to create a separate logo graphic to distract from the power of the proclamation.

Let’s celebrate being “SINGAPORE”.
Looking at the words in the theme, our focus naturally fell on “SINGAPORE” as the key word. If we were to make this work as a logo-in-theme, we would want to attempt to redesign “SINGAPORE” into an icon or symbol that can adequately represent the country at one glance.

And so we looked at our current national symbols to see what we can use…

Too touristy?
We realised that we do not have a lot of material to use. The Merlion, our national flower and iconic MBS towers all run the risk of being too touristy in nature. The Singapore island shape was used last year. And our Coat of Arms are too stately and official to be used. In a nutshell, we really do not have a lot of symbols we can draw inspiration from.

The most logical choice of representation? Our National Flag and all her elements…

So the challenge was: how can weave in elements of our National Flag into “SINGAPORE”? And this led us to our first very first version which we liked a lot:

We thought we cracked it!

Well, sort of. The first version was well received by the committee for its simplicity and completeness: it contained all the elements of our National Flag, from the Crescent to the five Stars, as well as our national colours of Red and White (the nice touch was that the Crescent and Stars were decked in white and kept it their original proportion throughout this execution).

However, a concern was raised by a few: some of them read it as “SINKGAPORE”, because of the presence of the Crescent on top of “N” creating the illusion of a “K”.

Bummer! Well, that was a fair comment though. And from the moment it was spotted and pointed out, everyone started seeing “SINK” from that moment on… including us.

Playing hide and seek with the Crescent
So to salvage the concept, we explored various places to place the humble little Crescent. Even opting to perhaps (gasp!) do without it at all…

Through trials and tribulations, this was the version that was eventually unanimously selected…

The Crescent appearing beside the lower case “i” was a good solution because it added more depth and meaning to the logo. Firstly, the Crescent’s symbolism of “a young nation on the ascendant” sits perfectly with the “i” that represents the aspiring individual. This “i” also offered us the extension of using it typographically 
to narrate every Singaporean’s voice.

With that settled, we moved on to fine-tuning the “logo”. One of the comments from the public was the concern that the five Stars were of different sizes. “Does this mean treating everyone differently?”.

While our initial reaction was that it might be a tad too literal to interpret the Stars this way, we nevertheless tested out various versions to see which worked better…

Eventually, the version with the different Star sizes won the vote. And it looked much more pleasing to the eye too.

But we were still not done with fine-tuning…

Various emphasis of “WE” were also tested to gauge reaction, as the idea was to also give focus to the collective.

Eventually we settled on one with the ideal balance…

That was not the end though. There seemed to be something missing still. And we realised it was the element of the “collective voice”. So the suggestion was to add a speech bubble to wrap up the theme (if you were to look at the “Initial Exploration” photo above, you’ll see that one of our options included a design that contained a speech bubble, a design that left good impressions to the committee as well).

So we tried out various versions of speech bubbles…

And eventually found a one that everyone liked.

With the main essence of the logo established, it was time to test colour tonality and shades to ensure good visibility when applied to various backgrounds.

Of particular concern was the grey shades of “WE ARE” and “NDP 2018”. On white, a lighter grey will not be as visible as a darker grey, while on red or dark backgrounds, the reverse is true. A tender balance was required…

And with that final round of testing, the logo finally emerged!

That’s half the battle won. The next half would see us develop a style guide to ensure correct usage in all sets of mediums, colour backgrounds and sizes…

…as well as a system of identity and secondary icons to help us extend the theme nicely across the board…

The result? A logo and theme we are all very proud of! And hopefully, a new symbol for SINGAPORE we can use for some time to come.

 

In conclusion…
Simplicity does not come easy. But if we think things through in a logical flow while respecting the opinions of others, the solution will eventually appear.

As design professionals, one of the most difficult thing to do is to be conscious of not over-designing for the sake of it, or pursuing trends blindly, for example, using the latest typography just because it is in vogue. Because what is in trend may not fit the need of the masses.

For a national logo like this, always remember: you are not designing for yourself, but for all Singaporeans out there. Your personal vision and preference need to be adjusted to cater to everyone’s preference as well. Because you don’t own the logo. All Singaporeans do.

And when all else fails, you can always go back to seek the advice of your mom and dad. Because they know best. Always.

PS: About thinc and what being a part of NDP means to us
Thinc is extremely proud to be the official design agency for NDP 2018, to add to our experience in 2017. To us, this years’ theme “WE ARE SINGAPORE” embodied the spirit of everyone working behind the scenes tirelessly since last year. All with one ultimate objective in mind: to put up the best show we can offer to Singaporeans. We thank EXCO 2018 for having faith in us and giving us the opportunity to be part of this amazing experience. As a born and bred Singapore creative agency, we cannot be prouder.

View our NDP 2018 portfolio here.