Minimalism is about living with less. Not settling, but choosing the most essential elements. Hong Kong-based graphic designer and artist Rex Koo channels minimalism in his personal project, Simple People, where he returns to the most common element in the field of graphic design – grids. Rex, who has over ten years of experience in the graphic design industry and designed numerous posters for both local movies and singers, is therefore the perfect fit for multi-label boutique kapok’s series of collaborations with Hong Kong designers!
kapok x simple people is a collection of tees, tote bags and illustrations, and they represent Rex’s perspective on minimalism and the metaphor of shapes, symbols, and colours. Within a restricted size of 32×48 grids, Rex creates artworks that have been simplified to its basic vector graphics. Three fundamental design questions guide his process: What to express? What to retain? What to abandon?
Chosen by the kapok team, a number of well-known icons from film, music, art are processed into simple geometric shapes, with carefully selected colour palette to represent their essence. Some of these big names include singer David Bowie, artists Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol, martial arts expert Bruce Lee, and Li-Zhen & Mo-Wan from Wong Kar-Kai’s film, In The Mood of Love.
The series of t-shirts are screen-printed on premium prima cotton tees from local label, sifr. They are exclusively available at the kapok flagship store at National Design Center, 111 middle road. T- shirts are priced at SGD90 and tote bags at SGD75.
