#themakersjournal

It’s our 6th Issue! We hope you’ve started 2014 in good form, and we’d like to follow suit with this jam-packed issue. If you’re in South-East Asia, its only been a month but 'two new years' have past since our last update - and things are only just getting started! This year promises to be a game-changer for us, so do follow us to stay updated.

In this issue, we have our widest regional coverage yet. We journey with leather goods brand Voyej on their factory production run in Yogyakarta and learn the ropes behind running a quality business. Next, we take a dive with Timo trunks founder-designer Pow Foongfaungchaveng, who shares with us his thoughts on the Asian creative industry from a Thai perspective. Across the Laotian border, Sali Sasaki of Crafted takes us on an expedition in the rural upstates, to witness the advancements made in creative education through her selfless intervention. Over in Taiwan, we learn many lessons from Y Studio’s school of philosophical thought, one of them being why life has to be bigger than design. Finally, back in Singapore, we talk to newly founded fashion label biro, part of the rising trend of designed in Singapore, made in Japan.

We’ve also devoted the visual focus of this issue to the observation of materials: leather, microfibre water-resistant fabric, brass, loopwheeled fibre, and the weave of a community. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

-

As we wrap up the year (and your gift orders, thank you all you fantastic people!), it’s only right that the spirit of gifting doesn’t stop at gifts, or occasions, for that matter. In fact, it might just be the signal of things more meaningful.

We've planned this issue to take you through your Christmas cheer and New Years’ tidings, a little gift from us to you. As you wind-down the year's accounts and take that well-deserved breather, check out our 5 Tips to Being A Good Host this holiday season. We're also delighted to bring you a christmas exclusive in collaboration with our friends The MeatMen, who do no less than to teach you how to make the perfect locally infused Christmas dish - in all it’s high-definition video glory.

Admist the cheer, it’s also a time for reflection. And as we look back on the past year, we’ve got much to be thankful for. We’ve made many friends from all over the world, dwelved deep into the industry, and most importantly to us - collected many stories. In this issue we share the reflective tale of how MessyMsxi turned failures into success, and celebrate the local successes with our friends from Supermama & Democratic Society.

Lastly, a splendid new year’s tale from our friends in Jakarta, about one brand's search for the perfect blue, their new collection designed for gardening, and reflections on sowing seeds for a new landscape.

We hope you enjoy the issue, and we can’t wait for the surprises we have in store for you for the upcoming year. It’s going to be a year of many firsts, and as always, we’re so glad to have you with us. On behalf of all of us at Haystakt, have a Merry Christmas, and a Happy, Happy New Year.

How do we define utility? In this age of counter-consumerism, we might find ourselves asking the question of whether we really need something before we purchase it. What’s great about this movement is that we often find inspiring and well-thought out products to improve our daily living. An accordion notebook to ensure you don’t run out of writing space, waterproof bags for the South-East Asian monsoon season, or swim trunks engineered for fun in the sun.

But speaking about inspiring, does utility necessarily mean function over form? For the creative professional, does it not include objects that inspire output, a feeling, or emotion? While it’s good practice to shop wisely, we’d like to venture that while some things don’t necessarily re-invent the wheel, they sure add that bit to making our lives better.

Leroy Xavier Zhong is a man of art and commerce, a duality that is quickly apparent when you talk to him. As an artist, he imbues his watches with a sensibility and style that close approaches art; and as a businessman he has, in the short span of two years, established Edypoi as a much sought-after watch brand from ‘the little red dot’.

This watch-maker’s tools are his accuracy and sharpness. “People only get to see things on the surface, they see the final product,” pointing to a screen of excel spreadsheets he declares, “but this is Edypoi and Hyper Grand”. As we chat over a proudly-pressed coffee in the second floor of Konzepp (he also takes his coffee seriously), we’re starting to see how this craftsman is elevating the status of the watch beyond that of a mere time-telling accessory, but a true statement of one's self.

Can you share with us a little about life before Edypoi? Before Edypoi, I worked at A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology, and Research) for about 4 years, where I was the commercialization person for all the technology that came out of there. I was like the business guy for A*STAR.

My degree was in Engineering, so while I had to go to school to acquire fundamental engineering knowledge, my business acumen came from seeing how my family dealt with businesses as I grew up. My mum's family runs a dog farm in Pasir Ris, and my grandmother used to open pubs along the current Shenton Way. That was in the 1970s. She started from one, took the profits to start another, and soon enough she had 7 of them. So growing up, I heard her talk about her businesses a lot. That got me interested in doing business.

What eventually made you leave to start your own watch brand? Ever since I started working, I knew that my calling was to do business, but I had enough sense to go out and work for someone first. So I had sufficient experience before I left. Being in a government organization opened a lot of doors. You actually get to meet people at the CXO level! It also bred the business decorum and acumen to do my own thing - with that kind of exposure you're not afraid to talk to anybody, not afraid to knock on doors! Finally I felt 3 to 4 years was enough to learn everything I could learn.

"It's the romantic idea that you can actually power your watch mechanically, and how much effort it takes to push out time by engineering every gear, every spring, to make that movement"

Was it always watches for you? Not really. I had to push around a few ideas. I used to collect watches. I think a lot of people thought that the engineering background was why I branched out to watches - they could see the relevance. I can say it's only partially true. Ultimately, you have find the idea that is viable as a business, but of course, passion is still part of the ingredient, otherwise you wouldn't be able to push out the kind of branding you’d want for your own business.

Making a watch isn’t simple. How and where did you learn to do that? To really understand the watch business, I had to get my hands dirty. I flew to Hong Kong to find people and knock on doors and say, hello, I want to make watches! One of the take-aways for me is that you don't get to learn these things by googling. You have to get to the crevices to get the knowledge you won't be able to get online. You have to get to the hotspot where everything happens. And for me that's Hong Kong.

I went to not only the engineering design offices, but I also went down to production offices to see how people carry out their productions. Designing a watch is not an abstract thing where you just go all artsy and draw whatever you want, because ultimately it has to be manufactured. It's actually two separate jobs - one, the designer; the other, the industrial designer. I have to wear both hats.

Has your watch-making journey been fraught with challenges? Actually, right from the start it has been good, for the sole reason that Singapore doesn't have any watch designers. We have one other brand that occupies a different positioning, like a $3000-$5000 range. I'm trying to occupy the gap between fashion watches and very well-made watches. Fashion watches are those that you wear for one year and then they break down or scratch easily. The well-made watches are built to last, but they over-engineer to beat the competition. Oh yours has 96 parts, mine has 205 parts! But in the end they all tell the same time.

So what I wanted to do was to keep things simple: a well-made watch that doesn't spoil within a year, doesn't scratch easily, made of good materials. When making the watches I used a more simplified movement that's of quality as well - movement is the thing inside your watch that runs it - and I retained the things that are important to people: the case materials, the nice leather straps, good design. Things that could add a lot more value to fashion watches and take away stuff from the high-end watches that would serve no purpose to the crowd.

How many pieces of watches did you initially make? We started off, plus the pre-orders, with about 400. The first 200 sold out really fast. I was so focused with getting the watch out I forgot about the sales portion. But one day I walked into a shop in Marina Bay Sands called the Society of Black Sheep - it's a multi-label store and I was there to buy clothes - and I started chatting with the shop owner. She found out I was a designer, but she was not surprised, maybe she thought I was a t-shirt designer, then when I said I design watches, her eyes opened up, because you don't get locally-designed watches here. I was wearing one, so she saw the prototype and she was so interested. Then they started stocking Edypoi watches.

Can you explain to us the process of making a watch? Is it really as difficult as most people think it is? To make a watch, first of all you have to mitigate the huge, huge challenge of making your watch look different from what's out there. The problem is that as an artist or designer, your canvas is really small. And fixed. Two hands, a face and straps. So how do you design a watch? Sometimes it doesn't have to look over the top, it just has to look pleasing. So I always start from the conceptual design. When it comes to making the watch itself, you start from the movements inside your watch.

When it comes to mechanical watches, it's the romantic idea that you can actually power your watch mechanically, and how much effort it takes to push out time by engineering every gear, every spring, to make that movement.

Where do you source most of your materials from? Mostly from Hong Kong. Unbeknownst to a lot of people, the watch industry is biggest not in Switzerland but Hong Kong. About 60 to 70% of all watches made come from Hong Kong. Traditionally they have been making watches for the longest time. The horological watches are mainly made in Switzerland, but how many people buy the expensive horological watches compared to normal watches? So most of them are made in Hong Kong. I make my watches in Hong Kong as well.

Have you ever thought of making the watches locally, here in Singapore? The problem with Singapore is that we don't have many supporting verticals. To have a watch-manufacturer you'll need a hand-supplier, you'll need a watch-face supplier. Not one factory does everything. It's hard to do it here because it’s a trade that doesnt even exist. Even in Hong Kong, nobody wants to learn the trade, so they are turning into mechanical processes where watches can be manufactured by pressing buttons.

The first thing I'm trying to educate people is, a watch is not an accessory that happens to tell the time. It's actually an extension of your personality. This applies more to guys; for guys, the only allowable sartorial thing is a watch, and at most a ring. But the watch is predominantly the statement. And if what I preach gets to people - that watches are an extension of your personality, it's a craft - then... that would be perfect.

"A mark of a good designer isn't how avant garde you can make your stuff, it's more of validation … how much people take up your stuff"

Tell us about Hyper Grand, the second watch brand that you started? How is it different from Edypoi? Hyper Grand is a partnership between me and 2 other partners. The thing for me is that Edypoi has been a success, but it's such a waste that it's not going international. And it’s difficult, because it's a small-batch manufacturing brand, and people buy it for that reason. So instead of changing the direction of Edypoi, why not just start another brand that can go on that path? Hyper Grand started because I don't want to pride myself as a pseudo-Italian or Japanese brand. I need that Singaporean brand to be pushed out globally. People become educated about a particular country or culture not through textbooks or television shows. The first time I get to know a culture is by using the country's products.

Would you ever miss the intimacy and satisfaction of making each watch yourself? I'm already missing that! I like to touch the things that I make. If I weren't so bothered with making an expanding, scalable business, I probably would be assembling every single watch and selling them in a small shop. It could be a small retail store, and I could be in a glass window and everyone could walk by and see me making watches. Imagine having to buy something where you can speak to the designer! Wearing such a product is a lot more substantial than buying it off the shelves, off the racks. That was one of my dreams.

As a busy owner of two watch brands, and wearing the hats of being both a designer and a businessman, what is one day in your life like? I will give you a snapshot of yesterday. Yesterday I was working on the design for the Esquire collaboration, I was also replying alot of emails and chasing suppliers, I was doing packing and quality control until 4am, and we had interviews to hire people. And the next day is completely different. And I do everything - the copywriting, even the website!

What inspires you? For me, it's a bit of architecture. That's why the first watch in Edypoi was so architectural. It was my best way of saying "avant garde". The first watch we did was very abstract. It had a watch face that was not conventional. There was metal dust sputtered onto the face at very high heat. This was done in small spurts - nice and glimmery. I did a black one and a blue one. The blue one looks like midnight sky. That sold out and I can't make that anymore. The craftsmen gave me hell. So tough! It is a see-through watch, so the dial sits on an island, which is laced with crystals, and the island sits on glass. When you look into the watch, you can see an island floating in the middle of the whole space. It doesn't look like it's attached to the watch. I also have floating hour-markers that are floating around the island because they are sitting on another level of glass. So that's what I mean by being inspired by architecture. That was the first watch. I was thinking, first one, go big or go home! If you want to debut you must make sure you're different, even if it's avant garde. So my "avant garde" had a purpose as well. It got me a lot of press.

What are some of your current plans? We are busy with collaborations, and once we are done with the launch this month, we will jump into the October designs. Then we will manufacture them fast. We want to sell and see which styles will be adopted. You can see I'm a very systematic person. I can't just design what I like. A mark of a good designer isn't how avant garde you can make your stuff, it's more of validation from adoption, meaning how much people take up your stuff. If it's avant garde and people appreciate it but don't adopt it, then they have never really validated you as a designer.

What's next? The lowest hanging fruit is whatever you have learnt. For now we only sell watches. In future it could be another watch brand with a different positioning. Maybe I will enter horology, maybe I will sell celebrity watches, and I market myself as a celebrity watch-maker. But another form of business would mean relearning everything. If there's no leverage from what you have already learnt, it's abit hard. But it's not impossible - as long as we see a need and no one else is doing it, and it's viable, we will do it.

The onset of the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago brought an unprecedented shift to the way people made things. Suddenly, humanity found itself faced with entirely new ways to make and manufacture goods that were never before possible - the people of that time must have felt, and rightly so, that anything could be made.

Over the years, our expectations caught up, and the magic of the big factory machine faded - we merely acknowledged its role in producing a steady stream of objects for us to consume everyday, nothing more. Undoubtedly, manufacturing processes still progressed. The laser replaced the saw. The CNC machine replaced the manual handwheel. But all these improvements were, at the individual level, evolutionary rather than revolutionary - they simply meant that factories could now produce at faster rates and more precise complexities.

In the past few years however, all these stepwise evolutions in machining, in the way we communicate, and in our expectations towards objects are finally about to tip over, and give rise to an industrial revolution of a different kind - production is moving from the big factories to the small houses, because it is no longer prohibitive to be small. All the barriers to entry are quickly collapsing.

"Young designers have given up waiting to be spotted by a big producer" - Tom Dixon

The Availability of Knowledge:  One of the supporting factors for this new maker movement is the fact that knowledge on how to build things is no longer secret, but rather has been made easily accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Everything from recipes, 3D printing blueprints, furniture diagrams, circuit diagrams, and instructions for almost anything else you can think of are now freely obtainable online, and not knowing how to build something is no longer an obstacle to the personal production process.

Manufacturing Tools are now Consumer Level Technology: Secondly, acquiring the assets needed to produce things is finally achievable on a personal level. Perhaps the 2 prime examples to illustrate this trend are the Pirate 3D Printer, and the Handibot, both of which captured overwhelming uptake on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter. While 3D printers had been steadily becoming more affordable, at the range of approximately $2,000 (USD) per unit, it was Pirate 3D’s Buccaneer that suddenly made it clear that 3D printing was finally within the reach of the average person, with an affordable entry point of $347. Similarly, the Handibot brought down costs of CNC machining to a never-before-seen price point (though the price of CNC machining tools will need to drop even further for it to be truly accessible).

Collaborations Now Transcend Geographical and Cost Boundaries: One last reason for this new wave in manufacturing is that even at a small scale, the complete manufacturing process no longer has to be completely taken up by one individual or group. Rather than settle everything from conceptualization to blueprinting to prototyping to distribution, aspiring makers can now count on specialist companies to outsource parts of the production process to, even on a singular scale.

Shapeways allows makers to convert a digital design into a 3D-printed prototype or finished product. FabHub allows designers to easily find a craft specialist for a specific fabrication method. For designers who aren’t yet proficient in computer-aided design, numerous CAD houses offer to convert a sketch into a properly-built CAD file. It’s become increasingly so that the mechanics of production are turning into less of a concern for the aspiring maker. All one truly needs now is an idea for a desirable product.

 As British designer Tom Dixon sums up nicely, digitalisation is enabling aspiring young makers to take production of their craft into their own hands - they no longer have to rely on established producers.

The mark of a modern city is that its landscapes are constantly changing. While there’s constant improvements to be made, places are a largely sentimental thing. But one small team is doing something more than just fulfilling our whim nostalgic desires. We sit down with Kelly Koh, Eugene Tan, and Gad Tan to chart out the shifting relationships between physical and digital, and the spaces in between.

We love the project. Who does what? K: I’m Kelly, an Architecture graduate. Eugene and I embarked on this project together while we were still in school, developing the structure, focus, and experience of the website. Apart from that, we do research, particularly from rare books, and field work, which adds to the site’s content.

G: I'm Gad and I lead a web design and digital development studio called Pettycache. Our role in the project was to design and develop a digital framework to facilitate the needs of the SOB team. We handled everything digital from building a content management system to setting up emails.

It can be said that the concept is rather ‘nostalgic’, would you agree? Or would you say the project is a reflection of the current cultural heartbeat? E: It’s interesting you point that out, though we didn’t set out to do so. We started with a focus on many buildings with strong public dimensions mostly from the ‘60s to ‘80s, because we felt they held meaning to a greater public. This was Singapore’s nation-building period, and paralleled in our urban history are building projects which attempted to articulate what it meant to be Singaporean and to live in Singapore. Many of these buildings have also developed deep-rooted communities which are worth documenting and discussing. So if you take those two qualities to the hilt, you may find yourself looking some time into the past. This is where we began, and we are always looking to build upon the current crop of buildings.

I think it’s difficult to grasp what the present cultural heartbeat is, even in a fairly small place like Singapore. And because we are in Singapore: What is culture? Who decides what culture is? I feel these are very interesting questions which are part of what we would like to explore.

K: Yet it does appear that the local situation is rather caught up in nostalgic sentiment, as seen in several activist movements, debates, and even expressed in interior design. This rallying spirit is an encouraging one, which brings the image of the city to the forefront of our collective consciousness. Our hope is to eventually broaden the system of value appendage, inculcating in people an appreciation of our built environment without the impetus of impending loss.

You chose a newer medium to present something so archival. E: In our research we had to constantly read and react to local happenings. That’s when we realized that things online were changing - there are people willing to talk about buildings and spaces, to discuss their meaning and significance. One example would be the effort to retain the old Malayan railway as a green corridor. We felt that the social contract between the public and the planners is evolving, or the public’s relationship with the architect. The value of good design is becoming more widely acknowledged, and I feel that the internet as a public domain, is the ideal place to test and understand these relationships.

G: In short, I think what we're doing is to serve as an online repository of peoples' memories and stories. It's almost a visualisation of how far we as a city have come and how much more there is ahead of us.

K: Yup, maybe in a way, equal parts nostalgic and progressive.

Was it easy working with Google Maps? G: Well there are a number of limitations, like one of the things we’re trying to do now is to allow an an administrator to easily set a location without having to go through the backend - previously that was more complex, we had to get the exact latitude and longitude and insert it through manual code, update the servers, only then does it display on the frontend. We also had to build a site on top of Google Maps to host all the content. We’re constantly thinking of how to make it as easy as possible.

How long did you guys take to build the site? E: Almost 2 years from our idea conception to public beta, we were still in school when we started this..

G: The biggest part was content accumulation, and that’s all them. They’re the ones who are running around with the cameras, doing the research, making multiple trips to the libraries.

So you seed the information, and other people contribute sob stories on top of that. G: Yes, that’s one of the founding principles behind the project. Person A can describe it one way, someone else will have another interpretation. It’s the intersection of these stories that give it sense, and that’s why we built in a contributing section. It’s one of the key insights we’re trying to highlight.

E: For the info part we’ve just interviewed several architects who have shared the stories behind their buildings, and hopefully in the pipeline we’re going to gather contributions from more of these lao jiao (experienced) architects. So it’s not going to necessarily be just coming from us, but in the beginning we needed someone to seed that content and that was us.

Can people pin on a location yet? E: That’s definitely in the works. 

What are the plans going forward? E: Given that this is a nascent passion project and not a full-time job, the long-term plan is to keep it sustainable. I think there have been a lot of sites with interest that have fizzled off after awhile, some of the creators have gone on to do other things or found ‘real jobs’. Right now we’re exploring how future generations can come in and help us out, for example younger people who are still schooling and have some time on their hands.

Another thing we want to get is also the architects and designers’ opinions. We’re also thinking of doing a tablet and smartphone version, so the walking trails will be more accessible for people and maybe even tourists.

Are there plans to go beyond singapore? E: I think one thing you’ll realize is that the Singapore map fits quite nicely on the screen. It opens up on the screen, you see the expressways, the main arterial roads, you get a very good sense of location and where certain things are. If you go bigger, it becomes harder to see things, and this unique condition of singapore is lost.

K: But if there are people who would want to franchise it, we won’t necessarily object.. (Laughs)

If you could sum it up, why would someone come to your site? E: We hope to appeal to people by giving them a takeaway - they get the information, pictures, and play around with the website - so there’s something that they can receive as much as we ask them to give. We know that we can’t just put out an empty canvas and expect people to contribute. Asking people to give - it’s a very sentimental and emotional thing, it’s very personal. On our part we need to keep abreast of what’s happening to certain places. On a basic level - not everybody reads the papers everyday so if we know of something we can tell people and they can have an emotional reaction to that.

K: I think what facebook has is a kopitiam (cafe) atmosphere, so uncles (distinguished men) are happy to contribute to that sort of environment. For us we’ll have to focus on the interactive and exploratory elements so that people will start seeing the website as a destination.

How would you describe the website in your own words? G: I like to think of the website as a kuay-lapis, a cake with many layers. There are layers of mapping and cartographic tools to tie in layers of collective stories and memories, creating a strong sense of association and geographic placement.                               

E: A leap of faith.

K: A being in infinite gestation, never fully discoverable. 

And your favourite buildings in town? E: In Singapore, Tampines North Community Club by William Lim Associates from 1989.                               

K: The Subordinate Courts Building by Kumpulan Akitek, built in 1976.

G: Pearl Bank Apartments. Probably have to check our site for the architect, but I like it for its design. They don’t build them like they used too.

E: It’s by Archurban, also completed in 1976.

The State of Buildings project is a celebration of histories, memories and relationships connected to buildings and places. We believe that every place is larger than itself. No single piece of information or account can ever pin down what a place truly is or means. Whether or not it still stands, it never ceases to exist. Contribute your transient encounters with these places, and together, shape the State of Buildings. Explore, Discover and Share.

We are all connected by our hands that make things.

An insightful short that manages to capture the various emotional and cultural landscapes of the maker movement today. Kudos to the team over at wearemakers.