E Z R E N A
A biography of Ezrena Marwan, graphic designer and founder of Malaysia Design Archive.
The scripts below the title EZRENA are her name in Chinese and Urdu, reflecting her fascination with her multicultural homeland. It is also a homage to her mixed heritage. The graphics superimposed on her picture are the books, files and archival boxes that make up her office.
Ezrena writes and speaks about the importance of archiving and questioning graphic design history, and what it means for the identity of a postcolonial country. Besides commercial projects, she has also worked closely with various NGOs including Empower Malaysia and AWAM (All Women's Action Society).
Our meetup resulted in a 5-hour long audio recording, all of which were written into a transcript. My original intent was to write the biography from a third person's perspective or from my perspective as the interviewer, but the copy ended up feeling very cold and formal. This is because Ezrena uses a lot of shorthands and different words from many languages, and taking all of this away is to take away the casual warmth characteristic of Malaysians.
To solve this, I experimented with splitting the text into two columns with different alignments: the interviewer (yours truly) on the left, and Ezrena on the right. My side of the conversation had a different typeface, lighter colour and smaller font size to allow Ezrena's words to take centre stage. I also resisted italicising non-English words; there is no need to Other the vernacular.
To solve this, I experimented with splitting the text into two columns with different alignments: the interviewer (yours truly) on the left, and Ezrena on the right. My side of the conversation had a different typeface, lighter colour and smaller font size to allow Ezrena's words to take centre stage. I also resisted italicising non-English words; there is no need to Other the vernacular.
