Jack Yan

Jack Yan (Chinese: 甄爵恩, Pinyin: Zhēn Jué'ēn) is a publisher, designer and businessman, born 1972 in Kowloon, Hong Kong. [Young, Simon. 2007, "Immigration nation", "Idealog", March–April, pp. 40–6.]

Yan founded his own company in 1987 while a teenager and grew it, initially, into the region's leading font software firm, [Baird, Zoe. 2002: "Jack of all trades", "Unlimited", July, p. 11.] claiming to be the first New Zealander to design digital typefaces. He created over 100 typeface designs himself for the firm, [Martinkus, Angela. 2000, "Type cast", "The Age", "Emag" supplement, March.] and inspired other local typeface designers such as Kris Sowersby to pursue careers in that industry. His typefaces include Ætna, a revival of Bembo. [Pratzel, Anne-Marie. 1996, "New faces", "Publish", August, p. 107] In 1997, he founded "Lucire", [Vidal, Josie. 2000, "The web that Jack built", "The Evening Post", "Flair" supplement, p. 8.] a fashion magazine that made the move from web to print, [Simpson, Emily. 2004, "Man with a plan", "ProDesign", December 2004–January 2005, pp. 34–36.] and serves as its publisher.

He also helms a consulting firm, where he wrote of the connection between business and spirituality, [Fernandez, Juanita. 2005, "Not your average CEO: Jack of all trades", "Wellington Today", July–August, pp. 10–11.] and is a director of the Medinge Group think-tank. [Rydergren, Tobias. 2002, "Go logo! Brand-soldaterna slår tillbaka", "Resumé", 22nd August, pp. 22–3.] Despite being interviewed as a brand consultant alongside international colleagues by CNN [cite news |last=Botelho |first=Greg |url=http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/11/15/sproject.hs02.brands/index.html |title=The brand name game |publisher=CNN.com |date=2002-12-05 |accessdate=2006-12-25] , "Business 2.0" [Mucha, Thomas. 2004, "Marketing the brand 'America'", "Business 2.0", online edition, 13th May.] and the UK's "The Daily Telegraph" [cite news |last=Booth |first=Jenny |url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/06/08/wgerm08.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/06/08/ixworld.html |title=We have ways of making you forget |publisher=The Sunday Telegraph |date=2003-06-08 |accessdate=2006-12-25] , he is better known outside New Zealand for this work.

From March 3, 2006, he began a weekly spot on TV One’s "Good Morning", discussing men's issues. In 2007, he became a judge for Miss Universe New Zealand.

Background

Jack Yan emigrated to Wellington, New Zealand with his parents in 1976. [Paki, Kui. 2004, "Polyeurasian—the new breed New Zealander", "Tu Mai", February, pp. 20–2.] He attended St Mark's Church School (where he was Dux) and Scots College, and graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with two business and one law degrees.

Aside from English, Yan speaks Cantonese. He also speaks French. [Jacobson, Julie. 2006, "Five minutes with Jack Yan", "The Dominion Post", 22nd June, p. D3.]

Writings

Many Australians in the design industry know Yan for his regular columns in "Desktop" magazine, which he began writing in 1996. He is possibly the magazine's longest-serving columnist. He was a contributor to "Visual Arts Trends" in New York (1999–2001), and "The Journal of Brand Management" in London (2003–5). [http://www.palgrave-journals.com/bm/journal/v10/n4/abs/2540125a.html]

Web publications that he has written for include UK-based "Fontzone" [http://www.fontzone.com] and "DZ3". He was a founding contributor to Allaboutbranding.com [http://www.allaboutbranding.com] (from 2002).

Additionally, he writes for his own publications, "CAP" and "Lucire".

Politics

Yan has an interest in politics, and in 2001 originated the idea of the single-issue 99 MP Party in New Zealand and, for a short time, was its first president. He did not have anything to do with the party by the time it contested, in a very minor way, some seats during the 2005 General Election. By that stage, he limited himself to writing sporadic editorials on politics. When asked about his political affiliation, Yan tends to say he is a Confucianist. [http://www.jackyan.com/files/020628-confucianism.pdf]

As part of his political interests, he gave a speech for the Alliance Party conference in October 2007 on full employment and branding. In the 2008 general election he is standing as a candidate on the party's list. [cite web | title = Candidate profile: Jack Yan | work = The Alliance | url = http://alliance.org.nz/2008-election/alliance-party-list/list-jack-yan/]

Books

*"Beyond Branding: How the New Values of Transparency and Integrity Are Changing the World of Brands", with Nicholas Ind (editor), Malcolm Allan, Simon Anholt, Julie Anixter, John Caswell, Thomas Gad, Sicco van Gelder, Tim Kitchin, Chris Macrae, Denzil Meyers, Alan Mitchell, John Moore, Ian Ryder; 2003, 2004 reprint edition, Kogan Page, ISBN 0-7494-4115-1; 2005 paperback edition, Kogan Page, ISBN 0-7494-4399-5.
*"Viewpoint: Perspectives on 21st Century Branding: User Seductive"; 2004, Wai-te-ata Press.
*"Typography and Branding"; 2004, Natcoll Publishing.

Controversies

In 2007 Yan registered the trademark of well known and recently defunct New Zealand magazine 'Pavement'. Yan claimed that the magazine had been "abandoned" saying "If someone throws away something, just like rubbish outside your house, I can legally go and get it". Pavement's publisher, still actively trading as 'The Pavement Company', are opposing the trademark application.

References

External links

* [http://www.jackyan.com Official site]
*
* [http://www.planete-typographie.com/infos/designer/yan.html Interview with Yan on his type design career (in French)]
* [http://www.bandt.com.au/pdf/nzreports/NZ_APRIL05_P28_29.pdf "B&T Marketing and Media" interview with Yan on his publishing work (PDF)]
* [http://nzbusiness.blogspot.com/2005/08/i-see-it-as-way-to-fight-terrorism.html Interviews with Yan on branding (MP3 files)]
* [http://www.stuff.co.nz/4231741a1860.html Dominion Post article about Yan's hijacking of Pavement magazine name]