Relay Room

Relay Room designed the exhibition identity / logo design for Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum’s Patterns of Trade exhibition. This was applied to various graphic design and environmental design applications such as banners, signage, brochures and other corporate communications collaterals.

The musuem tries to incorporate faces into the publicity material as faces connect with the audience. However, there were only a few pieces that featured figures; the rest depict flora, animals or abstract patterns. Obviously, faces were not the way forward.

With over 250 pieces in the museums collection, the visual variety and range of background images that the logo would be required to work with was enormous.

We felt the alternate letterforms of Priori Sans lent themselves in an exotic way without giving away too much. The eye-chart-like pattern of letters greatly excited the museum, but although the visual effect was striking, it was difficult to read. The solution was to incorporate a shape from the source material: a lozenge with the triangular borders (known as tumpal). The curators were delighted.

The logo and the lovely fabrics appeared on banners inside and outside the musuem. Here it's cropped to fit the format of the banner, but still retains its presence.