Reviving Lost Art: Jesvin Yeo's Innovative Approach to Documenting Traditional Crafts

3D Embossing Meets Pastel Chalk in an Interactive Book Celebrating Singapore's Fading Artisanal Heritage

In an era where traditional crafts are vanishing, designer Jesvin Yeo has embarked on a unique project to document and celebrate Singapore's rich artisanal heritage. His innovative book design, which won the 2022 Golden A' Print and Published Media Design Award, combines 3D embossing with pastel chalk to create an engaging, interactive experience for readers.

Yeo's inspiration for the project came from working with traditional artisans and understanding the importance of their crafts in enriching Singapore's cultural heritage. He realized that many of these crafts, brought to Singapore by 19th-century immigrants from Malaya, China, and India, are at risk of disappearing within the next two decades. This realization sparked the idea to record these crafts and trace their origins, preserving them for future generations.

The book's unique properties lie in its use of 3D embossing to highlight the intricate details of works crafted by traditional Singaporean artisans. From dragon boats to Peranakan beaded shoes, the book showcases a variety of crafts, encouraging reader engagement through coloring pages. The pastel chalk included with the book allows readers to discover the lost art of their ancestors, emphasizing the human role in safeguarding and supporting this intangible cultural heritage.

The book's production involved a combination of traditional book forms with new technologies, pushing the boundaries of book design. The book is not only a record of traditional crafts for future designers to explore but also an examination of book design as a form of vanishing traditional craft. The project faced numerous challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the intricacies of creating 3D embossed plates. Despite these hurdles, the team worked closely with production houses to ensure a smooth process.

The book's design is based on extensive research, including analysis of oral history data collected by the National Archives of Singapore and fieldwork with current and retired artisans. This research aimed to document Singapore's lost or vanished traditional crafts so that future generations can learn about them even after they disappear. The color pages of the book symbolize the rise and fall of traditional crafts, from their developmental period (dull color) to their golden age (yellow color) and eventual fade (white color).

The project began in May 2015 in Singapore and finished production in December 2021. The book is now on sale from March 2022. All images in the book are credited to photographer Victor Gui, and copyrights belong to Jesvin Yeo. This innovative approach to documenting and celebrating traditional crafts is a testament to the power of design in preserving cultural heritage.