The art book offers an informative and immersive reading experience through the inclusion of interactive elements such as comic illustrations, interesting graphic components, a miniature 3-D paper pop-up building, old library borrowing slip complete with pocket and old photographs.

The reading experience were also enriched with images consolidated from the National Archives and personal collection to help readers better visualize the stories as this approach makes the artbook more engaging as users flipped through the pages. The idea is to evoke nostalgia among readers and provide them a hands-on experience of life in the past, thus encouraging them to share more stories among each other. The idea is to compile personal stories from a historical context and use a fresh outlook to translate them into modern context.

Live interviews were conducted and presented in comic illustration, making the contents more alive and enhance the reading experience. Technology aid such as QR codes was applied to make contents such as the first recording of National Anthem more accessible for readers.

Untreated grey board, which fades away easily, was used for the cover material representing memories fading with time. An open spine concept was introduced to symbolize a fault line between the past and present, as well as providing a complete picture when the book is laid flat.

To strengthen the design touch points and boost social engagement, talks were conducted and a total of 1000 copies of the artbook was made available in National Library branches, National Gallery, and local bookstores.

Many readers have commented that the artbook helped them to relive their personal memories as well as provided interesting insights of the buildings. The first 1000 prints were sold out in all major bookstores within 1 year with reprints in the consideration.

The artbook has also won several prestigious international awards from GD USA, HOW International Design Awards, Design 100 New York, Design 100 Hong Kong, and Design 100 London. Several interviews on the book in both Chinese and English were also published on Singapore’s national and leading newspapers as well as TV programmes. This has also inspired conducting a workshop on building the pop-up kit which was done in conjunction with Singapore Design Week 2017.