Singaporeans now have one less reason to carry a bochap attitude towards the country’s political sphere, thanks to a wondrous invention by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) student, Mr Vedant Gupta.
The 23-year-old has created a deck of cards based on the country’s famous politicians, including current prime minister Mr Lee Hsien Loong and opposition member of parliament (MP) Mr Low Thia Khiang.
Named Politics of Singapore (PoS), the specially-designed cards were developed and curated with the ambition of instilling greater knowledge in youths about the city-state’s main political participants, both past and present. PoS was also part of a graphic design project for one of Mr Vedant’s modules at the School of Art, Design and Media (ADM) in NTU.
“If I ask myself, why collectible cards, of all things, in an era where technology is everywhere, why take a step back? Well, the answer to this would be an interest in vintage articles/items and printed ephemera,” Mr Vedant said.
“The main intention for this project was to introduce Singapore politics to school-going kids in a more illustrative way, such that it inspires them to understand and know the significant faces of Singapore politics.”
Response to PoS was encouraging when it was released about a year ago. About 10 friends requested for the decks to be printed and even offered to pay them, Mr Vedant said. Its online poster, uploaded only early this year, has since been viewed 393 times and received 50 ‘appreciations’ as of today (Mar 23).
While the young artist managed to dictate the process of researching to applying the final design style for the deck of cards almost seamlessly, the project hit a snag at its final stage – printing. Mr Vedant remarked that finding a good printing company in Singapore was challenging, eventually leading him to a dead end.
“I honestly couldn’t find any printer who’d be willing to print the cards … I tried looking around but no one was willing to print just a few decks and none of them were really good. I ended up printing each side of the card separately and then cutting and pasting them together,” Mr Vedant lamented.
PoS has a limited set of 10 cards in the deck. Each card bears an image of the political figure in a shade of black while his or her description – which includes the political party affiliated to and position held – is printed on the other.
There are no future plans to either design more cards or print the deck into its tangible form, Mr Vedant, a card enthusiast himself, said. Nonetheless, he may paint over his own words should more people demand for PoS.
Mr Vedant said: “I have no future plans for PoS as such. It was a university project for a module at ADM, NTU. But in case it received a lot of attention, I might consider printing the cards and other forms of merchandising.”
Exclusively for Vulcan Post readers, Mr Vedant is giving away an A3 Poster of any politician of winner’s choice to a lucky reader. To win this, all you have to do is comment on the Vulcan Post article below, telling us what do you hope for Singapore, and tag a friend whom you think might like this article. We will select the winner by end of the week!
Also read: [Inspiring] 2 men are running 250km across the Sahara Desert, for street dogs
