Hawker Colours
Melamine tableware in Singapore
Hans Tan Studio, In Plain Words

This project started out as a final-year project by Kwa Li Ying when she was studying at the National University of Singapore’s Division of Industrial Design. It was subsequently expanded into this project with the help of a team led by her supervisor, Associate Professor Hans Tan. The team developed a series of stories and an online public survey that was lunched in June 2023. The final results and the stories were then compiled in this book.

They refer not to the green of chendol or the red of mee goreng but the riot of colourful melamine plates and bowls in which many hawker dishes in Singapore are served today. Red, green, yellow, purple, pink, and more! These colours defy conventional aesthetic sensibilities, and yet they have become entrenched in local hawker centres and coffee shops. Hawker Colours retraces their origins and mass adoption, and asks what value they still hold as the trade adapts to the changing needs of the city-state.

Published by Hans Tan Studio, In Plain Words
Stories by Justin Zhuang, Sheere Ng
Designed by Currency
210 x 170 mm
175 paged
2023
Softcover (5 colour options)
English
ISBN9789811882487