Where You Going? Design Adventures in Southeast Asia is a new 220-page hard back design journal that chronicles the journey undertaken by London-based graphic designers Jamie Winder and Iain Hector back in 2011 to meet the graphic design communities of Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Singapore.

It can best be described as a design travel book, and Hector explains why they have taken this approach.

“We wanted the book to be something other than just a collection of works by designers, which is what a lot of design books seem to be – just images with maybe a few comments, quite dry,” says Hector. “A lot of that content you can now find on the internet. So we wanted the book to be a bit different, and we thought we could use it as a ‘device’, almost, as a way to tell a story. It’s written very much like a journey, and we wanted people to be able to follow that journey.”

The book starts off in the first few pages with a picture montage of the meals the designers had while travelling from one country to the next. Also incorporated into the design of the book are Winder and Hector’s email correspondences with the different creative studios. These are but two examples of how the pair have made a deliberate attempt to reveal the processes in the making of the book, and draw the reader into experiencing the design journey with them.

Hector elaborates on how the book goes beyond simply presenting the completed works of different studios. “We wanted it to be a bit more about the designers’ [work] processes, their perceptions [of the design] scene in the particular place that they work and how that compares to the other cities that we visited, and also how it compares to the work that [these designers have] seen in Europe or America.

Where You Going features 14 interviews conducted by both Winder and Hector during a five-week whirlwind tour of Asia, as well as an additional 20 showcases – interviews done when the pair returned to London. The people and studios featured include both well-known and respected names in the field of graphic design such as Asylum from Singapore, and less mainstream talents like At Home Creative from Kuala Lumpur, while the Q&A format of the interviews is in keeping with the casual, conversational tone of the book

Hector goes on to share some of the impressions the pair have formed from touring the different cities.

“We found that in Singapore [for example], there’s a real emphasis on process, and using that process to create something quite distinctive. So whether it’s specific printing techniques or the way the book is bound or put together, that seems to be really important here, which is good,” Hector reflects.

“Whereas in some places it could be a bit overlooked,” he continues. “It’s more about just thinking what the final product is going to be.”

This is the first book that both Winder and Hector have written – in fact, they were responsible for all aspects of its production, from the research to the interviews, and from the photography to the design.

While Hector says that the actual scale of the project turned out to be way bigger than they had initially anticipated, they are both open to the idea of doing a ‘volume 2’ to showcase more cities and studios that could not make it into the first edition.

“We’d love to do it again. I think we both really like the idea of somehow combining travel and the documentation of design,” says Hector, and adds that he hopes the book will help to promote designs from Asia amongst the creative community in Europe. “Part of the reason for [doing] the book is to try and inform people,” he says.

Where You Going? Design Adventures in Southeast Asia
whereyougoing.asia