Design in Malaysia 1957-2007?

Nice work! Am happy to see such effort related to design in Malaysia. Good start. Unfortunately I'm can't contribute much but would love to hear more about it. I think it is important to start a discourse about design and see what other designer been up too with their practices. Did it went well? How was it?

Regarding to the issues of design history in Malaysia, I think the evidence is there, just that it's not been valued enough. We just need to start valuing it and do some design exploration with it. Not to mention we need to publish or exhibit it in order to make it important and to get some value out of it. I'm a graphic / communication designer, related to my areas of practice, what I'm saying here are related more to printed material, promotional items, advertisement, corporate logos etc. I know that in architecture, there are lots of archived and collected information related to the history of architecture design in Malaysia. Note that graphic design / communication design can be considered as new field in Malaysia, therefore its understandable that it's is not much been appreciated. But I believe, we designers can make some changes in this. We need to start thinking what's our roles in design and how can we contribute to the society. - - Nurul

Note: Nurul Rahman currently is doing her PhD practice based research in Communication Design, School of Applied Communication, RMIT University Melbourne. She’s a communication and graphic designer who has been working long enough until she realized that she needed more that practice in design and decided to continue her postgraduate studies. Her interest is in communication design, identity, branding practices, culture and heritage. Her research investigates the participation of Graphic Designers in crafting cultural and national identity. Find out more about her here.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Nurul, I think you made some interesting points esp. on valuing our design heritage and it would be interesting to see what our readers think. Right now, in Malaysia, the architects have PIAM taking care of them. But who takes care of graphic designers in Malaysia? Am curious - what is the situation in Australia? Are designers also left to fend for themselves? - - K