Seattle and Raleigh-Durham marketing, graphic and brand design studio Design Kompany

DK just discovered Silnt, a really intriguing design studio in Singapore.

We corresponded wtih Singapore designer Felix Ng, one of the co-founders of Silnt, whose design for a film festival they’re organizing there really caught our eye.

Check out the website for the film festival. It’s beautiful. Nice to use. Lovely interface, and very appealing.

DK really likes happening on things that are modern and engaging in a contemporary art spaces. Olafur Eliasson at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Copenhagen—all of it. The Kenzo Tange buildings in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The Venice Biennale. The Seattle Art Museum expansion. And of course, the Seattle Public Library, designed by Rem Koolhaas, whose name peeks out of the corner in this image:

Felix Ng of Silnt and Anonymous

This is a still from an interview by a group called Commonpeople. The video clip is embedded below.

Here’s our correspondence with Felix:

DK: Both Akira and I have been to Singapore for travel/work and, like Vancouver, we admired the cultural diversity.

Do you find you have full creative freedom?

FN: I think the reason why we chose to be designers rather than artists is because we enjoy the challenge and ‘boundaries’ that are ubiquitous with a client.

of course, when the client is open-minded and trusts our ideas, will there be more creative freedom - but rarely 100%. fortunately, most of our clients are in one way or the other related to the creative industry, so that helps.

DK: Are your clients ready to take risks with you?

FN: well, it depends. most of the time, the better and clearer we can put across how the idea will be successful, the more willing the client is open to trying them.

DK: Have you had a chance to work with foreigners outside of Asia?

FN: yes, we do actually. we work with a few companies in tokyo, new york, kuala lumpur and berlin.

DK: How did that feel comparatively?

so far it’s been good - most of the time the budgets are much much more realistic then there are in singapore.

More about Felix and how he thinks about design

This is a clip where you can see some of the thinking behind the design for the film festival, and more importantly, the reason for creating a non-sponsored film festival at all.

Felix Ng, Silnt|Anonymous from commonpeople on Vimeo.