Zit Seng's Blog

A Singaporean's technology and lifestyle blog

That NDP Logo

Forgive me for saying some unpatriotic things. But there’s this logo that has bothered me for some time. It’s about the National Day Parade (NDP) 2016 logo. I thought it looked rather inauspicious. Don’t you think it depicts a broken heart? The strokes of the number “51”, appears to have ripped the heart into three parts.

Without reading up on the official meaning of the logo, I guessed that the heart represents Singapore. The “51” is for our nation’s 51st birthday. You take a look at it again, it looks like our 51st birthday has broken up Singapore?

There’s worse to it. To be honest, when I first saw the logo from afar, I thought the “5” looked like a bolt of lightning. To Singaporeans, the lightning refers to that certain party.

The “1” has already broken one-third of Singapore away. Now, the “5” has fractured the other two-thirds as well?

I’m really sorry, but this logo seems really bleak. The red heart could have had a happier meaning, since red is our national colour. Red is auspicious to Chinese too, as it represents good fortune and happiness. But here? A bleeding heart perhaps?

The heart shape itself, instead of having smooth curves, seems to be rather edgy. Okay, so up-close I see that they are made up of triangles. I don’t know if there’s any significance to using triangles. The end result, though, is an edgy looking heart. A Singapore that’s fracturing and bursting at the edges?

So here’s my interpretation of the : A bleeding Singapore, fractured and bursting at the edges, torn apart once, and then again by lightning.

I know it’s easy to criticise. I probably can’t come up with a better logo myself. But every time I see the NDP 2016 logo, I see a broken heart, and it makes me sad.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

View Comment Policy