A Prayer That It Would Not Rain

I was praying it would not rain. And thank god it didn’t. At 7 this morning, I met the drone pilot on a new residential development site to direct the opening scene for a video we are making for a developer client. We had to start early so as to catch a nice clear sky before the clouds came out.

Ending the drone session at 9ish and by then sweating like a horse, I swung by to a café for a quick coffee and to freshen myself up, getting ready to go for an installation of wayfinding signages at a new premise at 10am.

By 1pm, I left my colleague to finish up the installation of the signs as I zipped off for a quick lunch and went back to the office to print a book proposal to show a client at 4pm.

630pm, I’m back home, and finally have time to continue my drawings on the upcoming interior project and study the questions that my assistant has prepared for an interview I am conducting with a local designer the next day for my podcast Studio SML.

This is quite a typical day for me, code-switching in design languages, scale and dimensions (2D and 3D) several times a day. Being a design schizophrenic is perhaps a skill that I have acquired in my days as an architecture student whereby the idea that architecture is the mother of all arts is inculcated in us. This ability to be able to work transdisciplinary is a useful skill these days for those who run a small design studio. Singapore is a small and competitive city and small design studios often have to be quite versatile so that we are able to take on any design jobs that come our way.

Whenever we cross disciplines in work, for me it is an opportunity for my team to learn something new. A good design often comes down to a good idea, and this idea is like a seed that has the power to grow into something big. Once you have a good idea, the rest is execution and sometimes you may need to engage the skills of an external party to realise your idea, but you remain the mastermind who will sculpt that idea into reality, with the help of your army.

Even within our team, we often have the chance to learn from each other as we are a diverse team of spatial designers, graphic designers, illustrators, writers – projects such as exhibition design or wayfinding calls for everyone in the team to work together and, more often than not, we are able to draw out different perspectives that enrich our project due to such interdisciplinary collaboration. Our creatives are also able to learn from each other and broaden their skills through the process.

As for me, I see myself as the conductor of a symphony – while not being the best player in each of the individual instruments, he thrives on having the best orchestra members, and his most precious skill is his pair of supersonic ears that he uses to calibrate every adagio and every allegro,  just by listening and feeling; my superpower is my pair of scrutinising eyes and an empathetic mind that has guided my team to make visual symphonies with Adobe, Autocad and often, a prayer that it would not rain.

The recipient of Designer of the Year 2020 citation at President’s Design Award Singapore, Kelley Cheng is the Creative Director of The Press Room. Cheng is a teacher and mentor who is versed in multiple disciplines, including exhibition design, visual communication, and advertising design.