Jack Yan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jack Yan | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1972 (age 52–53) |
| Occupation(s) | Publisher, designer, businessman |
| Political party | Alliance (2008) |
| Website | https://jackyan.com/ |
Jack Yan (Chinese: 甄爵恩; pinyin: Zhēn Jué'ēn; born 1972) is a New Zealand publisher, designer and businessman. He is best known as the founder and publisher of Lucire.
He ran for mayor of Wellington in 2010,[1] and again in 2013, but was unsuccessful in both elections.[2][3]
Yan was born in Kowloon, Hong Kong,[4] and emigrated to Wellington, New Zealand, with his parents in 1976.[5] He attended St Mark's Church School (where he was Dux[6]) and Scots College,[7] and graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with three degrees – two in business and one in law.
Aside from English, Yan speaks Cantonese, French,[8] and Taishanese.[9]
Career
Business ventures
Beginning in the 1980s, Yan created over 100 typeface designs himself for his firm, Jack Yan & Associates[10] and was New Zealand's first digital typeface designer.[11] He encouraged other local typeface designers such as Kris Sowersby to pursue careers in that industry. His typefaces include Ætna, a revival of Bembo.[12]
He also helms a consulting firm,[13] and is co-chair of the Medinge Group think-tank.[14]
In 1997, he founded Lucire,[15][11] a fashion magazine that added print editions after starting on the web,[16] and serves as its publisher.
From 2007 to 2012, he was a judge for Miss Universe New Zealand, and became a director of the licensee firm that took over in 2013.
In 2008, he founded the online car encyclopedia Autocade,[17] which he then extended into a print version in 2023.[18][19]
Writings and media
Yan was a contributor to Visual Arts Trends in New York (1999–2001),[20] The Journal of Brand Management in London (2003–11),[21] and Desktop magazine in Australia (1996–2010).[22]
Web publications that he has written for include UK-based Fontzone[23] and DZ3. He was a founding contributor to Allaboutbranding.com (from 2002).[24] Additionally, he writes for his own publications, CAP and Lucire.
He contributed chapters to Beyond Branding (2003) and Brands with a Conscience (2016), wrote Typography and Branding (2004), and ghost-wrote Greek designer Panos Papadopoulos's autobiography, Panos: My Life, My Odyssey (2022), for which they won a Highly Commended at the Business Book Awards 2023.[25] He followed that up with the biographical Lilla boken om Panos: historien om den ikoniska badmodedesignern (2024) in Sweden.
From 3 March 2006, he began a weekly spot on TV One's Good Morning, discussing men's issues, but resigned from that role in 2007.[26]
In 2020, he started as a regular panellist on Radio New Zealand's The Panel.[27]
He is better known outside New Zealand for his work; he has been interviewed by CNN,[28] Business 2.0[29] and the UK's The Daily Telegraph.[30]
Politics
In the 2008 general election Yan stood as a candidate on the Alliance party list,[31] but no candidates for the Alliance were elected.[32] He was a candidate in Wellington's 2010 mayoral election,[1] and stood again in the 2013 elections.[2][33]
