Please help my friend Hasan and his family in Gaza

Something far, far more important than Google or Amazon—neither of which I particularly enjoy writing about, but do so only as a public service. Ditto with anything I’ve written about social media. My friend and typeface design colleague Hasan Abu Afash and his family have been displaced by the war in Gaza, and they are […]

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Twenty years of blogging

First up, as I’ve publicly posted this and have helped out myself, my friend and colleague Hasan Abu Afash is in Palestine, and I don’t need to tell you what he and his people are facing. If you can help out, here’s a link to his Paypal.   Apparently, August 11, 2023 marked my 20 […]

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Paging Kiwi magazine licensors

  I was surprised to learn that Lucire might be the only magazine brand being licensed from Aotearoa New Zealand at the moment. Unless the search engines are all equally poor at finding local colleagues doing the same thing. There are other publishers I know here—I had a great yarn with a Christchurch colleague in […]

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More Wikiality—and this time it’s about me!

Goes to show how seldom I ego-search.    Here’s something a Wikipedian wrote about me in a discussion in 2010: Jack Yan is not a notable typeface designer. He has never laid a hand on mouse or trackball to operate a font editing application. He tells some graphic designer employees of his what he wants […]

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When not having something drives creativity

I hadn’t expected this reply Tweet to get so many likes, probably a record for me. I knew my parents couldn’t afford The Lettering Book, so I went without, which forced me to create my own typeface designs. Later I became the first digital typeface designer in this country. — Jack Yan 甄爵恩 (@jackyan) July […]

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Joseph Churchward, QSM: a tribute

Joe Churchward, on my last visit to his home in Hataitai in 2012. Joe’s wall at his home in Hataitai. Two of Joe’s business cards, given to me at my last visit. I started the day with the sad news that Joseph Churchward, QSM, has passed away.    Joe was a great typeface designer, but, […]

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Private I

Here’s a quick post for Easter, from my friend Wayne Thompson of Australian Type Foundry. If you want decent typographic puns, you need a typeface designer—not some of those groan-worthy ones that get circulated by those outside the industry. Private I from Wayne Thompson on Vimeo. You may also like The revenge of Arial Remarks […]

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The revenge of Arial

To think, if I actually followed the advice of the Microsoft expert, I would still have a non-functioning Internet Explorer 9 that displayed blank pages. Rule no. 1: when it comes to computing, never follow the advice of a self-righteous expert. An everyday user who found out things the hard way, sure. An expert who […]

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