The Malaysia Design Archive

1920's luggage lable for E&O Hotel Penang
The British marketed Malaya as an exotic getaway, using the romance of the Far East with its colours, smells and beauty as an antidote to an increasingly urban and industrialized UK

The Malaysia Design Archive is a website that tracks the history of design in Malaysia, from Colonial times through Japanese Occupation, Independence and beyond. 

We fully support and encourage this site, it's great to see a small and passionate group of people who are devoted to the study and support of Malaysia's own design ethos. 

It's also a fascinating record of the diversity and change that Malaysia has undergone in the last 120 years, capturing visually and graphically the explosive growth and demographic changes in the country.

The below is just a small selection of the historic designs that are available on the site, to give you a feel for the breadth of social and cultural history that the site covers.

Ten dollar ‘Banana Money’ currency

Issued by the Japanese during their occupation of Malaya between 1942 and 1944. The front of this rare note features a tree bearing fruit, with the obverse featuring a depiction of a ship on the horizon.

Banana money is an informal term given to a type of currency issued by Imperial Japan during the Japanese occupation of Singapore, Malaya, North Borneo and Sarawak and Brunei, and was named as such because of the motifs of banana trees on 10 dollar banknotes.

Japanese War Leaflet, 1944

The leaflet above was dropped by the Japanese in both the Malay and Chinese languages. It addresses the Malayans as “brethren” and asks that they inform on the British and Americans, It offers rewards for worthwhile intelligence. Some of the text in Malaya and Japanese is:

The Japanese Army is your friend unlike the foreign British and Americans. We are all of a common ancestry and are Asian brethren. As such, we have a common enemy in the British and Americans.

If you see any British or Americans, please capture or report them to the Japanese Army and do not let them escape. If you can transport them to the Japanese Army then do so.

The Japanese Army will not harm you and you will be paid a reward.

Signed: Japanese Army Commander.

As a Brit in Malaysia, obviously this is spooky, imagining what this must have felt like for the British forces that were in Malaya at the time. 

Straits Times Annual, 1957
Featuring Datuk Maria Menado, apparently the most beautiful woman in Malaya at the time
http://www.malaysiadesignarchive.org/magazine-the-straits-times-annual-1957/

The Station Hotel, luggage tag 1950's
The Majestic Hotel KL, just opposite the station shown here, re-opened under YTL in 2013 after years of neglect, showing a trend for nostalgia and historic experiences that offer more than the modernised tower-block, cookie-cutter hotel.
Note the use of the oversized 'O' in the header to give the font a distinctive feel.
http://www.malaysiadesignarchive.org/emergency/

Malaysia-Singapore Airlines ad, 1969 promising the 'finest food aloft'
Proof that airlines always have been - and always will be - key media spenders. An interesting angle for a product or aircraft shot, not seen often these days. The rear 3/4 view, rather than showing a side-on or in-flight shot. Suggestive of immediate departure or travel. There is plenty still to learn from the ad-men of the past (this written having worked for 2 years on Malaysia Airlines here in KL).

http://www.malaysiadesignarchive.org/advertisement-the-707/

All images here courtesy of http://www.malaysiadesignarchive.org/

Please share this site widely and donate. Thanks to Ezrena Hussain for making us aware of this great resource.