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Thirty years cannot be reduced to a timeline.
ISS Singapore’s story is one of progress earned over time: the breakthroughs and setbacks, the wins and losses, and the constant work of learning, adapting and improving. To commemorate the milestone, Wherefore created a book that brought these experiences together as an honest record of how the organisation—and the people behind it—had grown.
We led the creative direction, art direction and design of the publication, carrying the thinking through to paper selection, print production and the final bound object. Released as ISS celebrated its 125th anniversary globally in 2026, the book placed three decades in Singapore within a much larger story of service, resilience and continual reinvention.
Anniversary books often look backwards. This one needed to show what those years had built.
The task was not simply to document dates and achievements, but to give shape to a complex organisational history. Across thirty years were moments of growth and uncertainty, decisions that paid off, lessons learned the hard way, and improvements made quietly over time. Together, they revealed a company continually becoming better at what it does.
Our creative direction embraced that honesty. Rather than presenting history as a seamless sequence of successes, the book was designed as a reflection on progress—recognising that an organisation’s character is formed as much by how it responds to challenges as by what it celebrates.
A publication of this scale has to hold many different kinds of content without allowing the story to become fragmented.
We developed a visual and editorial rhythm that could move between milestones, reflections and defining moments while remaining coherent from beginning to end. Hierarchy, pacing, typography and imagery worked together to help readers understand not only what happened, but how one chapter led to the next.
The design gave significant moments room to breathe while drawing smaller stories into the wider narrative. The result was a book that could be read chronologically, explored in sections or opened at any page and still feel part of the same journey.
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