There are many ways to tell a story. Ours is through colours and patterns. Visual storytelling is not new, one can tell from the discoveries of paintings in historic caves or even carvings in ancient temples. We never claimed our way is novel, but we believe our colours and patterns are unique in the way people could relate to the subject matters in a fun way, and the way they reveal that certain uniqueness in the mundanes.
Since we started Binary Style in 2015, we have been continuously looking for stories to tell, be they the obvious ones or the less observed ones. While many of our customers were initially attracted by our vivid colours and catchy patterns, it is the way our designs are tightly woven into the Singapore history, culture, and flora and fauna, that makes them special. In fact, we could easily use our various scarves to illustrate the timeline of Singapore’s history. We have been toying with the idea of creating a promotional video that tells exactly that for some years, but the idea was quickly buried under tons of work.
We were lucky to finally meet the Floating Folks, a video production company - a super talented team of media artists, to help us realise the video. Being artists ourselves, we were a bit nervous about others’ ability to translate our aesthetic language. What if our aesthetic visions do not align? Boy, we were wrong, the team has brilliantly translated our vision into a wonderful video that perfectly speaks of our aesthetic style and vibe, while letting the team’s artistic talents shine through.
The main concept of the video is to convey how our scarves tell the Singapore story, right from the moment Sang Nila Utama encountered the mysterious lion, to the early phase of the Nation Building to economic prosperity, and to the return of the wildlife that represents the softer touch of the island development. We quickly scripted a story board with the help of team. Next step was to select appropriate scarves to represent the different phases, then we looked for models who can bring the scarves to 'life'. We engaged our model friends Dinar and Suri, whose looks, intelligence, grace, and wittiness, perfectly represent our brands. The Floating Folks team then produced the video and animated the visuals using a combination of video recording, graphic animation and voice over. They have also added a catchy background tune. And bam! It is simply magic! We cannot be happier with the result! Hope you like it too!
Special thanks to Ziyu and Azmir and the rest of the Floating Folks team, Suri and Dinar our talented models, Gin Lee studio and Badt and Co for the wardrobes.
Here are the scarves that are featured in the video: