AN EXHIBITION BY PINK BLUE BLACK & ORANGE (PBB&O) SHOWCASES 25 CRUCIAL ‘MATTERS’ FOR GRAPHIC DESIGNERS TO SUCCEED, AND OFFERS A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE THAI GRAPHIC DESIGN INDUSTRY OVER THE PAST 25 YEARS
TEXT: PIYAPONG BHUMICHITRA
PHOTO: KETSIREE WONGWAN
(For Thai, press here)
I asked Chatbot AI what it takes to establish a successful graphic design firm in Thailand— achieving the kind of success where one doesn’t have to give up their entire identity as a designer. I received three answers, each with its own justification. The first was building a solid bond between the studio and its clients, as well as among designers. The second was paying attention to current cultural occurrences and trends, as well as having a good grasp of Thai humor. The AI also emphasized the need to keep one’s unique and irreplaceable individuality, as well as learn how to combine business and passion without allowing one to dominate the other.
Occupying the space inside the Architecture Library of Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Architecture, designed by Department of Architecture Co., is the exhibition by Pink Blue Black & Orange which aims to introduce the public to their DEmark-winning graphic design and interior design projects.
Looking through the responses generated by the AI, I couldn’t help but agree. These responses are virtually applicable to any country because, in Thailand, establishing and sustaining a successful graphic design studio without giving up your identity as a designer for twenty years or so isn’t all that common.
The logo designed by Siam Attariya, Design Director of PBB&O, for the exhibition sees the overlay of the exhibition’s title on the question mark sign in such a way that the word “MATTER” is arranged to contradict the first two words, posing an interesting question to viewers about whether this particular order really matters.
Siam Attariya and the current Pink Blue Black & Orange (2023) design team.
What Does Matter? 25 Things That Matter to Us as Designers is an exhibition by Pink Blue Black & Orange (PBB&O), co-hosted by the Department of International Trade Promotion, the Ministry of Commerce, DEmark, and Bangkok Design Week 2020. The exhibition is now showing at the Architecture Library of Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Architecture between February 4th and March 4th, 2023. While this is PBB&O’s first retrospective exhibition, which will take spectators through a brief history of their professional journey, to call it an archive of Thailand’s graphic design industry in the last twenty years would not be an understatement at all.
The key elements of the exhibition’s contents are more abstract in the second half than in the first. In this section, the topics and works show how PBB&O puts each project’s stakeholders in order of importance.
PBB&O began its business twenty-five years ago, designing graphics for print media. The studio’s operations have later expanded into other fields and industries, including exhibition design, interactive design, branding, video, animation, and digital formats with some of its highlight projects featured in this exhibition.
Each project is classified into one of the 25 “matters,” all of which are fundamental to the studio’s design ethos and approach. Among them is “Humor,” which is represented by the design of the “Humor Business” exhibition that the studio did with TCDC. The “Fun” segment selects works that express the sentiment, such as a National Book Fair booth design or an astronaut character developed for an energy company. Several color-filled calendar designs are chosen to represent “Color,” while “Elements of Surprise” highlights the product design projects that the studio created as a part of the New Year’s celebration for a number of companies. In terms of “First Impression,” the studio assembled a selection of name cards they designed for their clients while also including their own name cards as evidence of the attention to detail paid in the process of building an impressive first impression.
The name cards of PBB&O’s designers and founders, each with a different color representation and the face of the card’s owner hidden within the color spots.
Aside from color trends in graphic design and illustration, the exhibited calendar designs encapsulated trends from various time periods adopted by major corporations in Thailand on the assumption that they constituted a positive image they wished to portray to society as part of their corporate identity.
The 25 “matters” proposed by PBB&O in this exhibition are a combination of both concrete objects and abstract concepts, each of which will necessitate individual interpretations influenced by each viewer’s personal experiences and beliefs. Yet, it was the experimental method that helped PBB&O elevate their abilities and improve their perspective on how they chose projects to work on. The key visual design of the “Creativity Unfold” exhibition is the project that allowed them to devise their experimental approach with complete creative freedom. The exhibition, themed “SHIFT,” which took place in 2015 and was hosted by TCDC (when TCDC was still headquartered at Emporium shopping mall), gave them the opportunity to create 2D and 3D key visuals, which proved to be satisfying since it resulted in the studio experimenting for the most suitable combinations using techniques that they had never used before. Following that endeavor, PBB&O has rarely turned down the opportunity to embark on new and unprecedented undertakings, allowing them to continue to venture into uncharted territory.
The project that unlocked PBB&O’s abilities and served as a springboard for the studio’s expansion outside the sphere of print media.
Another aspect I don’t want visitors of the show to miss are the works on display on the large table in front of the introduction board. Many of these works are valuable creations that encapsulate different eras of print media and highlight PBB&O’s impressive collection and archive of their incredible body of work. Among the works is the album cover of the band, Boy Thai, with a design that captures the identity of a classical Thai music ensemble without the need to use inherently Thai elements such as traditional instruments, garments, or accessories in the logo. One of the presentation methods they have chosen is the display of slide films on a light table, harkening back to a time before the digital era when presentations were still showcased with these analog tools.
A significant collection of works archived by PBB&O in the form of slide films is displayed on a light table, a presentation method that was common twenty years ago.
Some of the works displayed on the large table in front of the exhibition are rare graphic design creations.
To me, the thing that sits at the top of PBB&O’s priority list in almost every project they have worked on in the last ten years is the stakeholders of each project, from the studio’s own designers and illustrators to clients, both at the operational and executive levels, and both from the private and public sectors, suppliers, and printing houses. The stakeholders also go beyond their own projects to include Thailand’s graphic design industry. PBB&O’s weekly broadcast program “Mind Your Business” is an evident example of the studio’s acknowledgment of the importance of stakeholders.
The identity of “Mind Your Business,” the weekly program published on several online platforms, features insights and visions of designers and interesting individuals in Thailand’s creative economy.
The posters displayed in this zone are largely from non-profit projects both inside and outside Thailand that the studio took part in.
The “25 matters” that Pink Blue Black & Orange feature in their retrospective exhibition should not be limited to this year’s Bangkok Design Week. I hope to see the contents and works presented in “What Does Matter” transformed into any forms of media that will allow anyone, from students to the general public, to see, read, and learn about the history of Thailand’s journey in graphic design, other than what they read from Anake Nawigamune’s A Century of Thai Graphic Design.
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