SINGAPORE, 15 September 2026 — Vertis, the Singapore-headquartered digital agency behind the redesign of Esplanade.com and Offstage, has been named a winner in the Digital Design category at the Singapore Good Design (SG Mark) Awards 2026. The distinction was awarded at the SG Mark Award Ceremony held on 10 September 2026, and adds a national design accolade to a project that went live for Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, Singapore's national performing arts centre, in June this year.
Established in 2013 by the Design Business Chamber Singapore (DBCS) in partnership with the Japan Institute of Design Promotion (JDP) — the organisation behind Japan's own prestigious Good Design Award (G Mark) — the SG Mark is regarded as Singapore's benchmark for design excellence. It recognises work that goes beyond aesthetics to demonstrate genuine value for people, businesses, and communities, spanning categories from architecture and product design to spatial and digital design. The Esplanade website revamp was recognised in the Digital Design category, alongside work from organisations including GovTech, IBM iX Singapore, and Accenture Song.
A marker of design excellence, not just a milestone
For Vertis, the win is a significant external validation of the design principles the agency brought to the Esplanade project — and to its practice more broadly. Being recognised by an independent national jury underscores that the platform's redesign wasn't just a visual refresh, but a rigorously considered piece of design work: one built around accessibility standards, a scalable and consistent design system, and a genuine focus on how a diverse public actually discovers and engages with the arts. It reflects a standard of design thinking Vertis aims to bring to every project, particularly those serving institutions with a public mandate.
Recognition for a platform built to last
The recognition follows the June 2026 launch of the redesigned platform, which unified two previously separate websites — Esplanade.com and Offstage — into a single, connected digital home. Full details of the redesign, including the shift to a unified Onstage/Offstage experience and the design system behind it, are covered in Vertis' original launch announcement, ‘Vertis Lays Foundation for Esplanade's Digital Transformation’, published in July 2026.
The SG Mark jury's recognition reflects that the platform's redesign was not only a visual refresh but a structural one — built on a scalable design system and accessibility standards intended to support Esplanade's programming for years to come.
"This win is a strong signal that our approach — design and engineering working as one discipline, not two — actually delivers. For a platform of this scale, the real challenge was never just the visual language; it was building a system robust enough to support 4,000-plus programmes a year while still feeling considered down to the smallest interaction. That's what technology-driven creativity means to us at Vertis, and it's exactly the kind of end-to-end digital experience we set out to build with Esplanade." said Gurlin Singh Lamba, Co-founder and CTO, Vertis.
"Bringing Onstage and Offstage together meant designing two distinct experiences that still feel like one platform — the energy of live performance on one side, the depth of storytelling on the other. We spent a lot of time getting that balance right, down to how the toggle between light and dark mode feels in your hand. Seeing it live now, with Esplanade's programming running through it the way we imagined, is genuinely one of the most satisfying moments of this project." said Mathew Searcy, Executive Creative Director, Vertis.
Marking the milestone
Vertis marked the win at the SG Mark Award Ceremony on 10 September 2026, where the team joined fellow honourees from across Singapore's design community.
The Esplanade redesign is also on public display as part of the SG Mark 2026 Winners' Exhibition, running from 7 to 13 September at Funan's Level 1 Atrium. Titled ‘The World is Your Oyster’, the exhibition brings this year's full cohort of SG Mark-winning designs into an accessible public space for visitors to experience firsthand. Members of the public can view all winning projects at sgmark.org/winners-2026 and vote for their favourite as part of the People's Choice Award.