Tan Haur
Academic Director
(Postgraduate Studies Department)

Born in 1963, Tan Haur is a Singaporean who has been a driving force in digital photography, digital imaging art and design for the past two decades. Graduating from Australian National University (Master of Visual Arts) with a major in digital imaging & photography, Tan Haur was inspired by professor Nigel Lendon to spearhead a pioneer digital art community program supported by the Singapore Ministry of Arts - CCS to organize workshops and seminars for the public on digital painting, design, photo imaging techniques, restoring and archiving.

Before committed himself as a fulltime art and design educator in the University and Special Community Projects, he worked as a chief curator cum manager for epSITE Digital Imaging Academy & Gallery (Singapore-Beijing-Shanghai-Tokyo) from 2000 to 2005. The post allowed Tan Haur to pursue his interests as well as to create digital art awareness in the region. Tan has received numerous awards and medals from USA, Australia, Japan and Singapore for his distinctive contributions to the Arts.

Tan Haur was a Creative Project Consultant from 1987 to 2000, and his job scope included undertaking consultancy work for digital art and graphics-related jobs worldwide. His years as the Creative Project Consultant saw him supervising assignments covering graphic design, advertising, exhibition and interior design, photography, digital imaging and corporate branding programs. He has successfully merged his passion and talent together with his career in the art, digital imaging and creative industries and has proved not just to be a talented artist and designer, but also a valuable member of the digital art community. Tan Haur’s love for art and design has motivated him to share this new genre with other enthusiasts. He maintains a personal website where he shares his work and passion.

www.tanhaur.com

Recently Tan Haur also represented Singapore for the ASEAN Art for All 2008 in Thailand organized by the Thai secretariat of the ASEAN Committee on Culture and Information to promote effective cooperation in the fields of culture and information for the purpose of enhancing mutual understanding and solidarity among the peoples of ASEAN as well as in furthering regional development.

Furthermore, Tan Haur was also one of the two mentors, along with Chng Seok Tin to create visual art/design for the Singapore National Day Parade 2008 goodie bag. Through a printmaking and digital art workshop mentorship by Mr. Tan Haur and Ms. Chng Seok Tin, students from Very Special Arts and School of the Arts were tasked to create the visual artwork for the 2008 National Day Parade goodie bag to be given to the spectators. This is also one of Tan’s art and design projects that has closely integrated Fine Art and Product Design in a symbolic manner. He will be looking into more cross disciplinary projects in the very near future.

Julie Ross
Programme Director
(3-D Design)

Julie Ross graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 1989 – where she proceeded to run her own Architectural Glass Design practice for seven years in Scotland. She moved to Singapore in 1996, where she held the position of Director of 3D Studies at a renowned design institution until 2001. During this period of time, she was responsible for the areas of Glass, Ceramics, Sculpture and Jewellery, within the Department of 3D Studies.

In 2001, she moved to Nairobi, Kenya – to pursue her Masters’ in Glass. During this period of time, she was a part-time lecturer in the Department of Product Design at the University of Nairobi. On her return to Singapore, she pursued her career as an independent Glass maker and Consultant and also as a part-time Lecturer at NUS Centre for the Arts.

In October 2003, she joined Raffles Design Institute in Singapore as the Programme Director within the Department of Product Design. Her work has been regularly exhibited in Singapore and Internationally. In 2003, she was a finalist in the CDL Sculpture Award Exhibition, Singapore and was also interviewed on Channel U – showcasing examples of her work. Examples of commissioned work can be found in Hoofddorp, Holland, Edinburgh, London, Hanoi, Singapore and Nairobi, Kenya.

Born in Manchester, England, Lucas is a three-dimensional product designer. He joined Raffles Design Institute in 2005 when he moved from the United Kingdom to Singapore. He studied Industrial Product design at England’s Coventry University design school of art and design where he attained his Bachelors of Science Degree.

During his professional career, he has worked for various product design firm consultancies such as Geo, LockOne LTD and Wilstead Digital in the United Kingdom. His interests include playing the piano, snowboarding and rock climbing. With a passion for food, he enjoys dining out with friends.

Eric Lim
Lecturer
(3D Design)

Eric graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Product Design from Raffles Design Institute. Before joining us officially in 2006, he was already contributing to our Institute as an adjunct lecturer.

Apart from Product Design related knowledge, he also has expertise in Interior and Graphic Design from his past working experiences. He has been involved in numerous freelance projects for a variety of clients such as Nokia, Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) and Motorola Electronics. Eric has a keen interest in model making and during his free time, creates 3D models as part of his collection.

An active and athletic individual, he enjoys jogging, swimming and beach volleyball. He has completed his full marathon recently and is looking forward to more marathons locally and overseas.

Associate Professor Louis Albert Dubé
Programme Director
(Interior Design)

Louis Albert Dube comes to us from Canada and has had industry experience as an architect in his own private practice. He has worked in USA, Canada and Italy. He has worked with multi-disciplinary firms such as Poirier-Cardinal in Montreal, Le Valencay in USA. He has experience in architecture, Interior Design and Landscape Architecture. He has been teaching for more than 20 years. For the last few years he has been highly involved in developing design and construction.

Rosah Lopes
Senior Lecturer
(Interior Design)

Rosah Lopes comes to us from Canada. She has an extensive background in Education, from Brazil to Italy and then studying Interior Design in Canada she has been in Singapore since 1995. Ms. Lopes has also been teaching and involve in many aspect of Arts, from Painting, sculpture and journalistic assignments.

Christopher A. Tapia
Lecturer
(Interior Design)

Christopher was an architect from the Philippines and has been teaching for five years. His experience as an architect and past experiences in handling design, management, and construction in different architectural and construction firms has motivated him to impart and share his expertise with the students.

As a lecturer, he believes that each of us has some unique capability, waiting for realisation. As a lecturer, it is important to appreciate eagerness and strengths of each student and to cultivate them into future professionals and good citizens. Christopher envisages lecturing as his life long career and will be striving hard to facilitate of the students’ learning.

Christopher is a simple, adventurous and a jolly person who likes watching movies, great passion for food and loves doing various sports, from basketball, volleyball, badminton, to table tennis, billiards, and even chess.

Franz Joseph T. Gonzales
Lecturer
(Interior Design)

Franz was a practising architect from Manila (Philippines) who has been in Singapore for 15 years. He has worked in various architectural offices and interior design companies in Singapore, and has been involved with projects like Anglo Chinese School, resort hotels at the Maldives and master planning at Abu Dhabi.

He came to Raffles Design Institute with the aim to help develop the talents of the students as well as motivate them to excel. Franz is passionate about design and human development and fond of reading success and motivational books. Franz is an active person and an avid basketball and volleyball player. He also loves swimming and playing golf in his leisure time.

Jojo Puah
Programme Director
(Interactive Media Design)

Jojo joined Raffles Design Institute in August 2003. Prior to this, she had been working as a senior media designer in multimedia and web related fields for 4 years. She was a part time lecturer in Raffles Design Institute before joining the school as a full-timer. Her achievements included her experimental video, entitled – “Drained from Life, drained from colours” in the Exuberance III competition in 2003. At the same time, her Genki Sushi E-commerce website also gained its recognition in one of the most prestigious design award ceremony, the Crowbar Awards in the same year, as a finalist in the interactive category.

She is a movie-goer and food-lover, and she designs web & interactive interfaces during her free time, see her latest portfolio at www.radionitrate.com.

Alfonso Bonilla
Lecturer
(Interactive Media Design)

Alfonso Bonilla’s long and firm association with Raffles began in 2005, when he joined Raffles Design Institute, Zhejiang-China as a leading lecturer in the Interactive Media Design and Graphic Design Programme .

Originally from Colombia, Alfonso came to Raffles Design Institute with an extensive experience in the public and private sectors. His early career centred in local government where he gained high reputation as an interactive media designer and obtained high qualifications from the Colombian Institute of Agriculture ‘ICA’. He later went on to obtain his Graphic Design, Multimedia and Animation Degree at Lasalle College (Canada). During his professional career he designed and developed many interactive multimedia solutions for clients as Daimler Chrysler, Mitsubishi, Organization of American States (OEA), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Liberty Insurance, Hyundai etc.

Winson Ho
Lecturer
(Interactive Media Design)

Winson, a Multimedia Designer by profession, has been lecturing and supervising the Multimedia course at a design college in Kuala Lumpur for seven years. By providing academic support to teaching faculty and students, he has honed his teaching methods on practical and vocational training in design subjects. He also worked in Singapore as an Interactive Media Designer for clients like SingTel, SingHealth, McDonalds, Singapore Sports Heritage Museum, eBay, PayPal, Singapore Overseas Students’ Association, HSBC and The Picturehouse.

In 2004, Winson went to the UK to pursue his Masters at the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design. In his year-long project ’Stress Reduction Through Plant Form in Interactive Media‘, he looked into research and idea development, interactive design, website making, contextual study, project promotion and concepts of translation between media. This project won him a Distinction Award.

He is passionate about his chosen fields of Interactive Media, Graphic Design and Digital Arts. He is immensely excited to be involved in design activities and enjoys working with and exploring the digital media. Now he is hoping to combine his previous experiences with his passion for interactive and digital arts to inspire the next generation of designers.

Paulo Moreira
Programme Director
(Visual Communication)

Over the past eighteen years Paulo has worked as a video artist, fashion designer and graphic designer. His video art has won several awards at the International Art Biennial of Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal, for the controversial video One Time, One Place and as part of the performance and intervention group Terceira Ordem. On top of that his work was showcased at numerous international events such as the International Film Festival of Figueira da Foz and Panico Total at the Institut Francais. He has produced several fashion videos for Etiqueta’s Spring-Summer collection and World Apart’s Autumn-Winter collection featuring funk band Black Out. He was also instrumental in the launch of the street clothing brand Metal Puro for which he worked as the Head of Design before moving to UK.

After a stint in advertising as Art Director, he worked both freelance and full-time for a variety of clients such as the BBC, Design Week, Budweiser and HP, before co-founding award-winning company Bunch (London) where he was Creative Director until 2001.

He holds a BA (Hons) in Graphic & Media Design from the University of the Arts, London College of Printing (now the LCC) and a Major in Information Design and an HND in Graphic Design from the Camberwell College of the Arts.

He is currently creative partner for Bunch Design London and Bunch Design Zagreb, Croatia and has recently published Made in Bunch, the second chapter in the developing body of work of this design collective. This book was launched simultaneously in 3 cities (London, Zagreb and Singapore) and features selected projects/case studies that demonstrate their collaborative nature and the way they’ve explored, played, torn apart and reconstructed their various visual and intellectual influences.

He lectures in Diploma and Degree programmes in Singapore at the Raffles Design Institute and has been involved in the co-ordination and delivery of BA Honours Degrees from the Middlesex University, Northumbria University and currently Raffles College of Design & Commerce. He has also taken the role of Campus Degree Coordinator for RDI Singapore until the appointment of the current Academic Director. Under his guidance students have won a series of awards such as the Crowbars, FutureBrand's Future Talent Awards and international recognition in the D&AD Student Awards and book.

Jorge Otero
Senior Lecturer
(Visual Communication)

Born in Colombia, Jorge is an interactive designer with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from Middlesex University.

He has been working with Raffles Design Institute for the last six years, including three years spent in our Shanghai campus.

He has worked professionally developing online banking applications, won an identity design competition and was a founding member of a design firm in Colombia. Clients included General Motors, Daewoo, and different government agencies.

Jorge has a passion for media, technology, open source and education. He is always trying to find ways to integrate technology into useful communication and education tools.

He enjoys a nice game of tennis, watching movies and devouring books.

Bernard Walker
Lecturer
(Visual Communication)

Born in the USA, Buz Walker is a visual artist with a degree from Chicago’s American Academy of Art. He was a graphic designer & illustrator for 21 years in California. Since 1995, Buz has lived in Southeast Asia where he has worked as a designer/illustrator in Indonesia and Singapore, and as an art & design lecturer at private art colleges in Malaysia.

Buz is active with Singapore figure drawing groups, and has shown his art in local fine art gallery exhibitions.

Kevin Mark Barrios
Lecturer
(Visual Communication)

Having studied at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, as a prelude to a career in graphic design, Kevin had intensive fine art training; exhibiting several paintings and illustrations in galleries throughout New Orleans, as well as in Singapore. During his studies Kevin started a record label and production company – Flashburn Records, for which he released records, booked tours for bands and brought bands to New Orleans for gigs. Kevin also served as art director and designer for the label. During this time he began working as a draftsman for Houma Industries where he was responsible for creating technical drawings, photographing the construction process and designing ads and other promotional materials.

After returning to school to get a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Communication, he worked briefly as a copywriter and freelance writer for Designer Magazine. He believes that growing up in the underground music scene and skateboard culture has not only influenced who he is as a person, but also who he is as a designer and artist.

Kenji Choo
Lecturer
(Visual Communication)

Kenji joined Raffles Design Institute in June 2008. Prior to that, over the last 22 years, Kenji has worked as an Art Director and Design Production Manager in the packaging, design, advertising, publishing and printing industries.

Kenji trained in the field of packaging design in Kyushu, Japan in 1991 and, after his return, spent seven years working as an art director in a packaging design company here in Singapore, followed by a further seven years lecturing in a design college. In 2003, Kenji went back to school and received a Master Degree in Design from Curtin University of Technology. After his stint in design, he worked as a senior art director cum design production manager and led a team of 47 staff at Yellow Pages.

Besides his experience in design, he is also a print consultant and has in-depth knowledge of print management, color management and print production. Kenji believes that every student has the potential to be a good designer if they have the right attitude and aptitude.

Mohamed Rizwan
Lecturer
(Visual Communication)

Born and brought up in Tanzania, East Africa, Rizwan brings with him a rich international background that encompasses a Bachelor of Arts degree in Visual Communication, an Advanced Diploma in Visual Arts from Cambrian College, Canada, and secondary schooling in Africa and India. During his studies, Rizwan was nominated for the Cub Designer of the Year 2005 award by the Commercial Art Guild of India and was also the winner of the Singapore Packaging Agreement (SPA) 2007 tagline contest.

Rizwan is a graphic arts professional with a vast array of design experience. He has worked with various brand name clients on various print and digital media projects targeting a wide spectrum of audiences. In these projects, in addition to his responsibilities as a designer, he also assumed leadership roles in ensuring timeliness and quality of deliverables to clients. These clients include Fusionopolis, Domicil, Ion Exchange, makemytrip.com, and Cipla among others.

In particular, Rizwan is passionate about corporate branding, marketing collateral design and photography. His design philosophy is inspired by an unlikely duo of icons: Gandhi and Google. They both embody high concepts in simple communications.

Apart from his professional interests, Rizwan is an avid marathon runner, a certified Black Belt degree karate instructor from the Academy of Indian Martial Arts, and an enthusiastic Latin dancer. He also enjoys traveling and experiencing new cultures.

Sherna Wadia
Programme Director
(Fashion Marketing & Management)

Sherna's education qualification includes a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Marketing and Management, coupled with a Diploma in Fashion Design. She has 4 years of professional design experience as the Senior Fashion Designer with India’s leading fashion brands Sheetal, and has designed clothes for selective clients from Canada, South Africa to Indonesia, Bollywood celebrities and socialites and the Indian contestants for the Miss World Pageant such as Aishwarya Rai and Diana Hayden.

After having moved to Singapore, she lectured at a Singapore school and worked as the Marketing and Merchandising Manager with Celia Loe of Singapore. She took up a teaching position with our institute in December 2002 and has not looked back since. Teaching to her has been nothing short of a passion, dedicated to imparting her work experience and knowledge of the regional fashion industry to the students.

Mabel Teo
Programme Coordinator
(Fashion Marketing & Management)

Mabel Teo joins Raffles Design Institute with fifteen years of in-depth experience in the Asian textile and garment industry. She has extended the Cotton Incorporated brand image and its reputation throughout the Asian market.

Soon after she graduated from Lasalle International Fashion School (now known as Raffles Design Institute) with a Diploma in Fashion Design in 1993, Mabel joined Cotton Incorporated, USA, in Singapore. Starting her career as a Fashion Assistant, Mabel soon rose through the ranks, becoming Fashion Manager for South East Asia, Global Product Marketing Manager, Executive Account Manager; her career path culminating with a Global Product Supply Chain managerial posting. Her in-depth knowledge in all aspects of apparel supply-chain management comes from extensive business networking and travel throughout Asia’s most fashionable cities. Mabel also upgraded her education with a Bachelor of Science in Business Marketing and Management Studies (Honours) from the University of Bradford.

Mabel was well sought after as a Panel Speaker at Thai Garment Manufacturing Association (Thailand), Dhaka International Textile & Garment Exhibition, Source It Conference (Manila), Asia Global Sourcing Conference (Jakarta), Interstoff Asia (Hong Kong), Hong Kong Fashion Week, Singapore Fashion Week and Malaysia Fashion Week, to name but a few of the stops on her tour of duty. Currently she is an active member of the Deputy Chair Committee for the Singapore Business Profession Women Association.

Now, Mabel takes pride in sharing her years of professional, global experience and strong network of industry practitioners with the upcoming students, whom she believes will be the apparel industry leaders of the future.

Giuseppe Spinelli, popularly known as Joe Spinelli is trained in both Fashion Design and Creative Arts. His expertise in fashion design ranges from men’s and woman’s wear, fashion accessories, leather and fur garments. He had a successful career for 12 years in Montreal Canada, and has won numerous awards; which include the Dubbonnet Design Awards Men’s Wear 1988 and Woman’s Wear 1990. He also held the post of Vice-President of the Quebec Designer's Association from 1988 to 1990.

Joe came to head the Fashion Design Department in 1993 in Singapore till present day. He has been instrumental in building the fashion design department in Raffles Design, raising the standards of the local fashion industry and to be one of the most respected personalities in Singapore and Southeast Asia.

The students under his guidance have won numerous contests and awards like the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Awards, Smirnoff International Fashion Awards, Asian Young Designer Award and most recently Mittlemoda 2004, putting Singapore on the world map. To date, he has groomed award-winners like Sven Tan (Winner of Mercedes-Benz Asia Fashion Award 2004), Hiroko Ueno (Winner of Mercedes-Benz Singapore Fashion Award 2005), Madeleine Wong (Winner of Asian Young Designer Award 2003) and many more.

"... my teacher Joe Spinelli was an inspiration, he taught me everything from scratch..."

Sven Tan, Winner of Mercedes Benz Asia Fashion Award

Swee Wong
Programme Coordinator
(Fashion Design)

Swee joined RafflesDesignInstitute in March 1992 as a lecturer and was promoted to Coordinator of the Fashion Design department one year later. Prior to coming to RafflesDesign, Swee was in the family tailoring business for 8 years. She then spent four years in New York and then two years working with Hongkong and Indonesian apparel manufacturers as a merchandiser and then senior merchandiser. During her stay in New York, Swee obtained an Associate in Applied Science degree (Summa cum Laude) from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT).

She is currently completing her Master of Education degree from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). Swee enjoys her lecturing work here. “The satisfaction I get is when ex-students visit and comment on their appreciation of my emphasis on planning and deadlines during their study here. Many of them are following in my footsteps in the manufacturing world."

“With the present students, I receive comments of how after just three months they are able to assemble garments under the lecturer's tutelage - what an accomplishment for them,” she said.

Brian Forst
Lecturer
(Fashion Design)

BSc Fashion Design, Woodbury University, Burbank, California, USA.
MFA Academy of Art University, San Francisco, USA.

Brian joined RafflesDesignInstitute in Shanghai as Fashion Design lecturer teaching at both diploma and degree levels for a year before joining our Singapore campus. He brings with him industry experience with John Galliano SARL and Christian Dior in Paris. Brian’s folio is particularly strong in Fashion Illustration. Previous experience included fashion styling for the Nob Hill Gazette in San Francisco and Visual Styling for Neiman Marcus, Beverly Hills.

Kyung Mi Lee
Lecturer
(Fashion Design)

Mi Lee comes to us with a Ph.D at Clothing & Textiles Department of Ewha Womans' University in Seoul, Korea. She has studied at Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) in Los Angeles, Marangoni in Italy and the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne in France.

With more than ten years of experience in the fashion industry, Mi Lee is an expert in draping and has produced many famous Korean designer collections such as Park Younsoo, All Style and Oh Eun Whan. Her hobbies include snow skiing, water sports, cooking and travelling.

Edmund Tay
Lecturer
(Fashion Design)

Edmund graduated from the Raffles Design Institute with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) degree, majoring in Fashion Design. Even while he was still an undergraduate, he was already an active contributor to Singapore’s fashion landscape; competing actively in the annual fashion week festival as well as representing the Institute in fashion shows such as Singapore Fashion Week.

Upon graduation, he had the great opportunity to work with some of Singapore’s leading women’s wear designers such as Celia Loe and Michelle N. Edmund also joined the Textile & Fashion Federation and helped organize the highly successful Singapore Fashion Week04.

Sanjay Razora
Lecturer
(Fashion Design)

Sanjay started his career in the fashion industry as a production coordinator. His interest in fashion design grew during that period and he decided to pursue his Diploma in fashion design from the National Institute of Fashion Technology in India and completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Fashion Design from the Universal Collage of Learning in New Zealand. He worked in New Zealand as a Production Manager and Designer with a company making swimwear and casuals for women.

Sanjay returned to India in 2006 and worked with ‘JJ Valaya’ as senior designer and presented a couture and prêt collection in India Fashion Week, before joining Raffles Design Institute as a full time lecturer.

Sanjay likes travelling, photography and listening to music. In his free time, he likes to watch a good movie preferably a comedy.

Jeremy Brett
Programme Director
(English)

Jeremy Brett comes to us from Ireland where he graduated with a BA in English Literature from University College Dublin. He also holds Graduate Diploma in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) from the University of Limerick. He then worked as an ESL teacher and teacher trainer in Dublin, Ireland. He was also involved in materials development and self-access room management. Since leaving Ireland he has worked in Tokyo as an EFL instructor and also conducted ESP courses in Business and Tourism in Japan.

Prior to joining the Raffles Design Institute he worked in Singapore on IELTS examination preparation courses. He has been living in Singapore since 2002.