Digital Media
#simitaiseng Passion Project
The client:
Limpeh
The brief:
What happens when a Singaporean ah beng wants to write about his neighbourhood? Limpeh presents to you simitaiseng, our Instagram-based scrapbook. We wanted a passion project to call our own. It also allowed us to hone our writing and amateur photography. And it turned out to be great fun!
The work:
As Tai Seng gradually morphs from a gang-filled kampung to a bustling industrial town of SMEs, we thought it was a perfect opportunity to document the people and places that make up the area. Also, we made some friends, not just for the “friendship discount” at our favourite eateries, of course. Then, we realised that simitaiseng could also become a fun neighbourhood guide for others.
We wanted to stay true to the creole of the area. This is why we chose to adopt ‘simi’ - the Hokkien world for ‘What is’ - as part of our project name, with Singlish liberally drizzled in the copy. This counts as bilingualism, right?
Visuals had to be big as well, as much of the colour and the beauty of the Tai Seng folks could only be conveyed in photographs. As a visual-first platform, we chose Instagram as the medium of documenting the neighbourhood through a series of three posts for each profile.
We documented 52 profiles in 156 posts over a period of one year’s lunch breaks (this is where the passion part of passion project comes in). Many followers appreciated the tongue-in-cheek voice. At least that’s what we think lah.
https://www.instagram.com/simitaiseng/
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