The Sound of an Identity: A look into the Singaporean accent

Category: Motion Design & Typography
Role: Typography & Motion Designer
Timeline: Aug–Sep 2026
Link: straitstimes.com ↗ (opens in a new tab)
Skills: Illustrator
After Effects
Figma
Creative ideation
Design thinking
Storytelling

The brief

The team analysed 800 recordings to explore what makes the Singaporean accent unique and needed visuals readers could understand without any background in linguistics.

Overview

An interactive article on the Singaporean accent made with a team of journalists, designers and developers. I co‑designed the typography scattered through the article which stretches and drops letters to mimic the accent and two animated heads showing how vowels and consonants are said in Singaporean, American and British English.

Opening page of the article, with the headline set in typography that stretches and drops letters like the accent

The challenge

Sound is invisible and the IPA charts are hard to read.

I needed to find a way to show the tongue position and airflow for the motion graphics while showcasing the exaggeration of how a Singaporean accent is when spoken. So I co‑designed custom typography and motion graphics to help readers visualise the accent itself.

Handwritten-style sentence: “they tried to keep it a secret but he was able to figure everything out”

The same sentence as it sounds in a Singaporean accent: some letters shrink, some stretch, joined by a wavy pitch line with red stress marks — The outcomeTypography FeaturesEach word has an extending tail allowing it to be connected once it extends, emphasising the length of a Singaporean accent. Letters such as ‘t’ have a slight curve in them to have a handwritten feel. Smaller letters show a habit in the Singaporean accent where certain sections in a word are not pronounced or emphasised when said. Letters that extend, such as ‘r’, show that the Singaporean accent exaggerates when talking.

Saying ‘keep’This is a snapshot of the motion graphic in the article on how the air flows out of the mouth when saying the word ‘keep’, as well as how the tongue is positioned based on the IPA chart.

Motion graphic still: the word “dance” beside a mouth diagram marking Singaporean, American and British tongue positions — Saying the ‘a’ in ‘dance’This is a snapshot of the motion graphic in the article on how different accents such as Singaporean, British and American position their tongue when saying the letter ‘a’ based on the IPA chart.

Colour paletteI developed and proposed a colour palette to emphasise the key features of the motion graphics. The team responded positively and used it for the published article.