Opening it felt like meeting my younger self.

This was completely pre computer era. The typography was handwritten. Layouts were drawn by hand. Text was applied manually or prepared for silkscreen. We were only just beginning to hear about computers, but they were not part of our daily practice at school. Everything required patience. Precision. Touch.

You can see it in the pages. The lines are not perfect, but they are intentional. The spacing is considered. The letters carry personality because they were shaped slowly, by hand.

I had just left Malaysia, so naturally that was the theme closest to my heart. Distance has a way of sharpening memory. The tropical references, the textures, the cultural elements, they appear instinctively throughout the work. When you are far from home, you draw home.

One project featured an Aikido school. Another was a packaging assignment for fish. Of course I chose ikan bilis. It has always been my favourite fish, so even in Antwerp, thousands of kilometres away, that small anchovy made its way into my design brief.

Looking back at these pages now, almost three decades later, I see the beginning of everything. The love for typography. The fascination with culture. The instinct to connect story and design. The discipline of working by hand.

It is humbling and comforting at the same time. A reminder that the foundation was always there. Long before Nala. Long before stores. Long before social media.

Just paper. Ink. Ideas. And a girl far from home, drawing her way forward.