Category — Press

London and Wellington, May 19 (JY&A Media) One of the Highly Commended prizes at the Business Book Awards 2023 in London earlier this week, in partnership with Pathway Group and organized by ThinkFest Ltd., was won by a Wellington author.
   Panos: My Life, My Odyssey, the autobiography of the Greek–Swedish swimwear designer Panos Papadopoulos, was ghost-written by Lucire publisher Jack Yan.
   Mr Papadopoulos founded Panos Emporio AB, Sweden’s most famous swimwear company, and was branded by the Swedish press as the ‘king of swimwear’.
   Mr Yan first met Mr Papadopoulos in the 1990s while researching a story for Lucire, and was approached to ghost-write the book in 2021.
   Using notes, interviews and personal knowledge, the book came together in Wellington over ten months in 2021, and was published by LID Publishing in London last year. The original manuscript was done in WordPerfect, which could handle the text and provide reasonably realistic previews of the pages.
   Mr Yan also typeset and laid out the inside of the book, while LID assigned the cover to experienced book designer Caroline Li. Martin Liu, COO of LID Publishing, oversaw the publication.
   LID was also responsible for the grand prize winner on the night, Nicholas Janni’s Leader as Healer. Panos: My Life, My Odyssey won a Highly Commended in the Business Journey category.
   The two titles were LID’s winners, selected from 100 books entered.
   Literary agent and publishing coordinator Jacq Burns, former commissioning editor at Random House and editorial director at Harper Collins (where she edited Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus; Who Moved My Cheese?; Chicken Soup for the Soul; and Toddler Taming), led the judging panel, which comprised an additional 42 experts.

Images

Panos: My Life, My Odyssey cover
High-resolution JPEG, 1·12 Mbyte

Official images from the Business Book Awards 2023, by Edwin Ladd of Mr Ladd Media, are available on Flickr.

About Lucire
Lucire, the global fashion magazine (lucire.com), started on the web in 1997 from its base in Wellington, New Zealand, the country’s first commercial online fashion magazine. In 2003, Lucire became the first fashion industry partner of the UN Environment Programme (www.unep.org). In 2004, it became the first magazine in its sector to extend its brand into a print magazine. In 2005, it became the first web magazine to be licensed as international print editions.

Notes to editors
For more information about LID Publishing, please visit www.lidpublishing.com.
   Lucire is a registered trade mark of Jack Yan & Associates and subject to protection in certain jurisdictions. All other trade marks are the properties of their respective owners and are only used in a descriptive fashion without any intention to infringe.

Contact
Jack Yan, CEO
Jack Yan & Associates
T 64 4 387-3213
E jack.yan@jyanet.com

Teya Ucherdzhieva, Communications Executive
LID Publishing
M 44 7928 666-131
E teya.ucherdzhieva@lidbusinessmedia.com

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Wellington, October 13 (JY&A Media) Lucire, the international fashion magazine that started in Wellington, commemorates its 25th anniversary on Friday week New Zealand time.
   Originally an online publication, it has since expanded to international editions both in print and on the web.
   The brainchild of Wellingtonian Jack Yan, Lucire started in his former home office in Rongotai 25 years ago—though its roots lay in a Victoria University postgraduate project the year before.
   ‘I was fascinated by fashion publishing since I was a teenager,’ Mr Yan recalls. ‘I was already doing work for print agencies and printers after school, but of course they weren’t going to let a teenager on to the big stuff. When you’re hand-lettering a black-and-white menu for a local event, you look at where the pinnacle of the profession was. Who had the best typesetters, printers and photographers?’
   He says he bought a copy of the Australian Studio Collections magazine in 1989, which inspired him.
   ‘I was already designing digital typefaces—fonts—at this point, and we also had a DOS-based digital magazine that was sent round bulletin boards,’ he recalls. ‘But I always wanted to do more.’
   When he saw the World Wide Web for the first time, he says he saw the possibility of Lucire, though there were no online fashion publications initially.
   ‘The first one was Fashion Net in 1994–5,’ he recalls. ‘There were people talking about fashion on bulletin boards, but Fashion Net was the first one I encountered to actually have a website and its content on it, not just a promo page on the web.’ He struck up a friendship with Fashion Net’s founder, Stig Harder, who would go on to publish Lumière, arguably the web’s first “glossy” fashion magazine.
   ‘But there was no Vogue or Elle or Harper’s Bazaar. There wasn’t even a Fashionmall, despite what they claimed in later years.’
   By this point, Mr Yan already had a design and business magazine on the web, called CAP Online, which, with hindsight, familiarized him with the world of online publishing.
   During his honours’ year for his Bachelor of Commerce and Administration in 1996, Mr Yan used the idea of an online fashion magazine for his innovation project. A friend later named the magazine Lucire, and in 1997 he set about building the first edition.
   His first feature interviewee was Laurie Foon of Starfish, who was recently elected to the Wellington City Council for her third term.
   ‘Laurie didn’t even have an email address or website in 1997, but she was so gracious at helping out this guy who walked into her store one day asking for an interview,’ Mr Yan recalls.
   When Lucire launched at midnight on October 21, 1997—20th in the US, which would be the country that initially made up 70 per cent of its visitors—there were stories on Ms Foon, an online retailer in California, and travelling in Bali. The one earlier fashion magazine in New Zealand’s cyberspace, Wellington Polytechnic’s Fashionbrat, had by this time finished, having run for a single issue during 1996.
   In 2003, the United Nations Environment Programme, now celebrating its 50th anniversary, teamed up with Lucire to promote sustainable fashion. As a result, Lucire is the first fashion industry partner of the UN organization.
   It could have simply remained New Zealand’s longest-running online fashion magazine, but in 2004 Mr Yan decided to diversify into print—a risky move as it was largely unprecedented. In the 1990s and early 2000s, it was more common to go from print on to the web.
   Since then, Lucire has appeared in print in New Zealand, Romania, Thailand, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, while the original website continues alongside a US edition called Lucire Rouge. A men’s website, Lucire Men, also appeared in the 2010s and was an advertiser favourite mid-decade.
   Past and present editors have included Rola Al-Ouda, Stanley Moss, Sopheak Seng, Elyse Glickman, Jody Miller, Joanne Gair, Lola Cristall, Jamie Dorman, Beth Follert, Nikko Kefalas, Summer Rayne Oakes, M. K. Johnson, Stevie Wilson, Devin Colvin, Samantha Hannah, Mirella Lapusca, Laura Ming-Wong, Simone Knol, Susan Kelly, and numerous others, while Aljawhara Al-Otaishan, Valentin Lapusca, and Miguel Kirjon have been among Lucire’s publishers in different countries.
   Print cover models have included Gal Gadot, Laura Vandervoort, Violett Beane, Denise Richards, Javicia Leslie, Camille Hyde, Brittny Gastineau, Vanessa Carlton, Sarah McLachlan, Stacie Jones Upchurch, Nicky Hilton, Theodora Richards, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Olga Fonda, Amber Peebles, Monica Gabor, and Cinthia Moura, with Elena Sartison holding the record for the greatest number. Damien Carney, Jon Moe, Lindsay Adler, Gray Scott, Andrew Matusik and Kiwi photographer Dave Richards have shot the most print covers. Sopheak Seng, Joanne Gair, Nikko Kefalas, Adrian Gutierrez, Cannon and Linh Nguyen have worked on the most covers in creative direction, make-up and hair. On the web, the photography of Rebecca Thorpe, Catherine Leroy and Malcolm Brow kicked things off in the 1990s.
   ‘When starting out in 1997, of course I was hopeful we would be celebrating our 25th anniversary,’ says Mr Yan. ‘But now we’re here, it feels a little surreal. We’re looking back on over 100 print covers and goodness knows how many iterations of the website.’
   A 25th anniversary print edition will be out before the end of 2022, although Lucire KSA has already run the first quarter-century story in print this month, while the website (lucire.com) will feature a series of anniversary articles over the next several months.

Notes for editors
Lucire is a registered trade mark of Jack Yan & Associates and subject to protection in certain jurisdictions. All other trade marks are the properties of their respective owners and are only used in a descriptive fashion without any intention to infringe.

About Lucire
Lucire, the global fashion magazine (lucire.com), started on the web in 1997 from its base in Wellington, New Zealand, the country’s first commercial online fashion magazine. In 2003, Lucire became the first fashion industry partner of the UN Environment Programme (www.unep.org). In 2004, it became the first magazine in its sector to extend its brand into a print magazine. In 2005, it became the first web magazine to be licensed as international print editions.

Images

Lucire cover, issue 45, 2022
High-resolution JPEG, 1·25 Mbyte
Photographer credit: Greg Alexander for Mephistopheles Productions

Contact
Jack Yan, Founder and Publisher
Lucire
T 64 4 387-3213
E [email protected]

###

Wellington, June 7 (JY&A Media) As it prepares to celebrate its 25th anniversary, New Zealand fashion magazine Lucire has picked up an award from the UK’s Luxlife magazine as part of the latter’s Health, Beauty and Wellness Awards for 2022.
   ‘Ultimately, the Health, Beauty and Wellness Awards were launched to determine and recognize the best of these companies and their world-leading products, services and experts. This year’s winners are certainly no different,’ said Luxlife.
   Lucire was named by Luxlife’s judges as its ‘Most Pioneering Online Fashion Magazine 2022’.
   Lucire founder and publisher Jack Yan says, ‘It’s nice to know that 25 years after we pioneered online fashion magazines, in the plural, in Aotearoa, we are still being recognized around the world for our leadership.’
   Not only is Lucire New Zealand’s longest-running online fashion magazine, founded in 1997, it is one of the few anywhere in the world that made the jump successfully into print editions. Today, there are two Lucire web editions, in New Zealand and the US, and three print editions, published in both English and French. Over the years, Lucire has been licensed in Romania, Thailand, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia.
   ‘I imagine our unusual status of having started online, then diversifying into print, piqued the interest of Luxlife’s judging panel,’ says Mr Yan. ‘We also pursued a partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme in 2003 and committed to promoting sustainable fashion, long before it was trendy.’
   The Kiwi title remains fiercely independent and based in Wellington, where it was founded.
   Luxlife says it focuses on luxury, publishing ‘only the most cutting edge of products, services, attractions and events that will appeal to our audience.’
   To find out more about these prestigious awards, and the dedicated establishments that have been selected for them, visit www.lux-review.com/ where one can view the winners’ supplement and full winners’ list.
   Lucire’s entry can be found at www.lux-review.com/winners/lucire/.

About Lucire
Lucire, the global fashion magazine (lucire.com), started on the web in 1997 from its base in Wellington, New Zealand, the country’s first commercial online fashion magazine. In 2003, Lucire became the first fashion industry partner of the UN Environment Programme (www.unep.org). In 2004, it became the first magazine in its sector to extend its brand into a print magazine. In 2005, it became the first web magazine to be licensed as international print editions.

About Luxlife
Luxlife Magazine is a premium lifestyle publication which was founded in 2015 by the publishing company AI Global Media Ltd. Distributed to a circulation of 238,000 globally, Luxlife focuses on a range of topics within the luxury lifestyle industry, featuring articles on; fashion, beauty, fine dining, travel, luxury real estate and much more. Within our pages you’ll find everything from product news and reviews, to in-depth pieces on trends, features and comment; all designed to inform, entertain and inspire.

Notes to editors
Lucire is a registered trade mark of Jack Yan & Associates and subject to protection in certain jurisdictions. All other trade marks are the properties of their respective owners and are only used in a descriptive fashion without any intention to infringe.

Images

Lucire cover, issue 45, 2022
High-resolution JPEG, 1·25 Mbyte
Photographer credit: Greg Alexander for Mephistopheles Productions

Contact
Jack Yan, Founder and Publisher
Lucire
T 64 4 387-3213
E [email protected]

###

Wellington and London, May 30 (JY&A Media) What do you get when you mix the talents of Sweden’s king of swimwear and a fashion magazine publisher in New Zealand? Only the sensational new autobiography that hit UK and European shelves last Thursday, with a star-studded launch party this Tuesday night at Stockholm’s Nobis Hotel.
   Panos: My Life, My Odyssey tells the rags-to-riches story of Panos Papadopoulos, the Greek-born swimwear designer, whose multi-million-dollar label, Panos Emporio, propelled him to the top of his industry. It was in Wellington that Lucire publisher Jack Yan gave shape to the book, from a series of interviews with, and copious notes from, Panos. Even its internal pages were laid out and prepared for print in New Zealand’s capital city.
   The two men have known each other for over two decades, after Jack first wrote a story about Panos for Lucire. They also share personal stories about emigrating to new countries and finding success; and Jack had a particular understanding of Greek culture, having grown up amongst the Wellington Greek community when his family first arrived in Aotearoa in the 1970s.
   ‘Panos and I always had an innate understanding of each other, probably because we both dared to try new things. We knew that about each other from the start, he with pioneering, colourful, and comfortable swimwear in Sweden, and me with being the first to do digital fonts, and the first to do an online fashion magazine in New Zealand,’ says Jack. ‘We’re both designers who never took a single design course. It wasn’t hard to understand another entrepreneur’s mindset and to ghost for him, especially someone who became a friend over two decades ago.’
   Panos first hatched the idea in 2016 but it took another five years before their schedules aligned.
   Published by LID Publishing of London, Panos is a story that will inspire people to keep fighting for their dreams no matter how difficult or impossible they might look.
   From poverty, where his parents worked in a foundry, to a life filled with glamour, royalty, and Hollywood stars, Panos Papadopoulos has never had a quiet moment. In his autobiography, Panos tells his story vividly, from his proud roots in Greece, working as a guard in one of Sweden’s toughest prisons, to creating one of the most famous fashion labels in Scandinavia. If that wasn’t enough of an adventure, he also tells the stories about chairing a football team, how he made a beauty pageant pro-woman, to high drama of being detained in Lebanon, and run-ins with the mafia! Along the way he encounters Victoria Silvstedt, the late Whitney Houston, Jamie Foxx, Alice Cooper, two European kings, and others that make his story intriguing and unique!
   Panos explains why he has decided to write his autobiography: ‘After I sold my business—my life’s work—I wondered what the next stage in my life’s journey would look like. I began to get more time to coach others and gave some lectures, and was consistently asked for more. How did I come up with my ideas for marketing? Design? Entrepreneurship? I realized then my journey had inspired others, and what better than writing it all down in a single volume?
   ‘As a creative soul, I also wanted to prove that I could express my knowledge and experiences in an authentic, emotional way. I know I can make a difference. I did with my designs—they touched people.
   ‘I applied the same principle to writing my book, and I wanted to connect to others at a real level. I didn’t follow the pattern of other writers, and I did it my way. And I dreamed that this would be one of the most popular autobiographies!’
   Victoria Silvstedt, model, actress, presenter and entrepreneur, says of the book: ‘An eventful life’s journey full of drama, with tragedies and triumphs, all while grounded in principle, family values and human philosophy, told in masterful style. A must-read!’

Images

Panos: My Life, My Odyssey cover
High-resolution JPEG, 1·12 Mbyte

About Lucire
Lucire, the global fashion magazine (lucire.com), started on the web in 1997 from its base in Wellington, New Zealand, the country’s first commercial online fashion magazine. In 2003, Lucire became the first fashion industry partner of the UN Environment Programme (www.unep.org). In 2004, it became the first magazine in its sector to extend its brand into a print magazine. In 2005, it became the first web magazine to be licensed as international print editions.

Notes to editors
For more information about LID Publishing, please visit www.lidpublishing.com.
   Lucire is a registered trade mark of Jack Yan & Associates and subject to protection in certain jurisdictions. All other trade marks are the properties of their respective owners and are only used in a descriptive fashion without any intention to infringe.

Contact
Jack Yan, CEO
Jack Yan & Associates
T 64 4 387-3213
E jack.yan@jyanet.com

Teya Ucherdzhieva, Communications Executive
LID Publishing
M 44 7928 666-131
E teya.ucherdzhieva@lidbusinessmedia.com

###

Wellington, November 9 (JY&A Media) Irirangi Te Motu’s (New Zealand on Air) research into New Zealanders of Chinese and Indian heritage has spurred days of intensive discussion from a number of people from the Chinese New Zealand community, with it labelled ‘disingenuous’ and ‘disconcerting’.
   The final report from NZ on Air is called Asian Media Use in Aotearoa 2021, and their announcement, as well as the report’s filename, Chinese and Indian New Zealanders Media Use in Aoteoroa [sic] NZ final, suggest that it is a broad, qualitative study purporting to represent an representative sample of both groups.
   Critics say the study is anything but.
   Wellingtonian Jack Yan says, ‘Irirangi Te Motu should be applauded for commissioning the research but it is disingenuous to present the Chinese section as representative of the Chinese Kiwi population at large.
   ‘For instance, only one of the eighteen respondents was New Zealand-born, whereas the 2018 Census puts that group at over a quarter of all Chinese New Zealanders. On this alone, that’s a fifth of the community missing from NZ on Air’s “range”.’
   The Wellington Chinese History account on Twitter, run by New Zealand-born Chinese, added, ‘If you had presented the findings in a way that accurately described the Chinese participants, rather than suggesting that that it was representative of the diverse range of Chinese New Zealanders, there would have been less of a feeling of alienation.’
   NZ on Air has so far thanked its critics for their kōrero, and added, ‘We are aware that the research has its limitations, we see this research as just one part of a picture—to be added to our other data sources (such as Where Are the Audiences) and viewing insights from platforms. As such it is a piece of the puzzle we haven’t previously had. We will continue to commission further research to better understand audience needs.’
   Some of those reacting to the report say they found greater affinity with the Indian New Zealanders interviewed.

Contact
Jack Yan, CEO
Jack Yan & Associates
T 64 4 387-3213
E jack.yan@jyanet.com
###

Wellington, October 2 (JY&A Media) A number of Instagram accounts have been shut down with no violation of their terms and conditions, including the account for international fashion magazine Lucire.
   Activity on social media, especially Reddit, suggests that Instagram has been closing numerous accounts without warning, and barring any attempts at the link they provide to file appeals. One observer on Reddit’s Instagram subreddit suggested there were more shutdowns this time, and complaints of account deactivations currently appear to be more frequent.
   Investigating the widespread shutdowns, Lucire publisher Jack Yan says, ‘One common denominator to some of the accounts is that their owners accessed Instagram via the desktop, suggesting that the company now frowns upon those who choose not to, or cannot, use smartphones for accessibility reasons.’
   He notes that attempts to file appeals are met with an error message, claiming, ‘We limit how often you can post, comment or do other things in a given amount of time in order to help protect the community from spam,’ even though the appeals are not spam. Not even a single appeal gets through, over days of attempts.
   In Lucire’s case he was fortunate to reach a Facebook Support Concierge who has referred the matter to Instagram’s internal team, but a resolution has not yet materialized.
   ‘If our clean, uncontroversial business account isn’t safe from Instagram’s parent company Facebook’s algorithms, then whose are?’ he asks.
   Mr Yan also says that there are thousands of spam accounts that he knows of that Instagram has not touched, yet legitimate ones are being deleted.
   He says as early as 2014 he had spotted an ‘epidemic’ of bot activity on Facebook that the company’s algorithms missed, while presently COVID misinformation continues to spread on the company’s platforms. ‘You’d think those were not only more detectable but were a greater priority than those of us who eschew small cellphone screens.’
   He adds, ‘The big picture is that our team’s work over many years is gone, as are the accounts of many Instagrammers, even though we have not done anything wrong. Also, there are so many wonderful creatives who tag us, and their work cannot be seen through our account now, either.’
   He is not a regular user himself, saying he goes on to his own account for a few minutes every one to two months, but that Instagram confronted him with a ‘We noticed unusual activity from your account’ message on his personal account as well when he began to investigate.
   ‘That was also after I looked at my account on the desktop,’ he says. ‘It just discourages you from using the platform altogether if you risk losing everything.’
Image

Lucire cover, issue 43, 2021
High-resolution JPEG, 1·50 Mbyte
Photographer credit: Damien Carney
About Lucire
Lucire, the global fashion magazine (www.lucire.com), started on the web in 1997. In 2003, Lucire became the first fashion industry partner of UN Environment (www.unep.org). In October 2004, it became the first magazine in its sector to extend its brand into a print magazine. By May 2005, it became the first web magazine to spawn international print editions. There are currently five editions worldwide. It is headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand.
Notes to editors
Lucire is a registered trade mark of Jack Yan & Associates and subject to protection in certain jurisdictions. All other trade marks are the properties of their respective owners and are only used in a descriptive fashion without any intention to infringe.
Contact
Jack Yan, Publisher
Lucire
T 64 4 387-3213
E jack.yan@jyanet.com
###

Auckland, August 13 (JY&A Media) In an extraordinary irony, the release of the UK-based Lockdown Theatre Company’s (LTC) An Actor Resigns, performed by well known actor and TV producer Nigel Godfrey, came on the day that Auckland, New Zealand, his hometown, headed back into a partial lockdown, after New Zealand had enjoyed a record-breaking 102 days free from community transmission of COVID-19.
   Like most in his profession, Nigel Godfrey found himself at a loose end in lockdown. Back in March he wondered what the future held for his profession in a post-COVID world, as he saw a Japanese tour of Phantom of the Opera that we was acting in cancelled. Wearing his hat as a producer he had to postpone Miss World in New Zealand for 2020, and as an actor playing Graham Walker on Shortland Street he experienced the enforced break that lockdown delivered.
   So what did he do for the seven weeks of lockdown? According to Nigel, ‘Lots of walking; I made a long list of jobs that needed doing around the house, and then didn’t do any of them; I planned a raft of projects that I now need to get on to. I bonded with the cat and did an enormous amount of thinking—and drinking. I got in touch with people I hadn’t spoken to for a while, many of whom were in other countries. And although travel had stopped, I felt the world became strangely smaller.’
   One of the people he was in touch with was Rohan Candappa in the UK, an old school friend and an author who has sold over a million books. Rohan infamously, when “let go” from a very well paid position in the advertising industry, used the experience to write a play entitled How I Said F*ck You to the Company After They Made Me Redundant, which did rather well in Edinburgh. He’s also the founder and artistic director of the LTC.
   The premise for the LTC is that Rohan creates and writes the scripts and then the actors work with him remotely on the presentation. They are then filmed by the actors on Ipads or phones and go back to Rohan for the upload and release. By the time Nigel’s script was ready, New Zealand had in fact come out of lockdown, so in his words, ‘I felt a bit of a fraud. I was able to slip into a friend’s TV studio and film the piece on proper gear, but the essence of the work is the same as those filmed by all of the UK actors, who were working in slightly more challenging conditions. Little did I know when it released, we’d be back in lockdown.’
   On this particular episode, Rohan said, ‘One of the reasons that I wanted to work with Nigel is that he is in New Zealand. As the Lockdown Theatre Company has grown in scope and ambition since it started in March, it became apparent that our way of working meant we weren’t limited by geography. We could work with anyone across the UK and to prove the point why not take it to the extreme? Why not try to produce something worth saying and worth seeing, while working with someone half a world away?’
   Nigel said, ‘To be honest I was really honoured that Rohan asked me to perform his work. I think that his vision is extraordinary. I was lucky enough to attend one of his “thread mash” gigs, which are an evening of spoken word performance, when I was back in London at Christmas. We met up the next day at the National Theatre and following that I knew that we’d work together on something, I just didn’t know it would be this.’
   Both Rohan and Nigel went to Alleyn’s School in Dulwich, a school with an extraordinary pedigree for the arts. Founded by Edward Alleyn in 1619, the theatre manager who first discovered William Shakespeare, the school has a long list of celebrated performance alumni, including, Simon Ward (Young Winston, Judge John Deed), Julian Glover (For Your Eyes Only, Game of Thrones), John Stride (A Bridge Too Far), Ken Farrington (Coronation Street, Families, Emmerdale), Frank Thornton (Are You Being Served?), Nicholas Day (Minder, New Tricks) and more recently Jude Law, Hanna and Jesse Ware, the Chemical Brothers, Florence of Florence and the Machine, and Samuel West and Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen, both of whom were contemporaries of Nigel and Rohan.
   This is the second season of 10 films, making 20 in total, each one delivered by a different actor with each script conveying a different message. Nigel is hopeful that when COVID-19 is finally over, perhaps all of those involved in the LTC can physically come together and work on something, and he has no doubt that Rohan could write something befitting such an auspicious event.
   An Actor Resigns, written by Rohan Candappa and performed by Nigel Godfrey is live on YouTube from Wednesday, August 12 at youtu.be/DV1NQ9oDqPI.
Images

Nigel Godfrey, who performs An Actor Resigns, for the Lockdown Theatre Company
High-resolution JPEG, 661 kbyte

Rohan Candappa, founder of Lockdown Theatre Company
High-resolution JPEG, 1·64 Mbyte

Rohan Candappa, founder of Lockdown Theatre Company
High-resolution JPEG, 1·51 Mbyte
Contact
Nigel Godfrey
[email protected]
+64 21 630-443
###

Wellington, June 13 (JY&A Media) Lucire, the international fashion magazine started in New Zealand in 1997, is on to a hit in Saudi Arabia, where the publication finds itself in first and businesses classes on Saudia, the country’s national carrier, and in their lounges.
   A monthly, as it was originally in New Zealand in the mid-2000s, Lucire KSA is receiving positive reviews after completing eight issues since the end of 2018.
   Under publisher Aljawhara Al-Otaishan and editor Qurratulain (Annie) Wahab, Lucire KSA balances its international content with locally sourced items, and has interviewed some of the region’s leading fashion and beauty industry players.
   A substantial amount of readers take in Lucire KSA each month in the Middle East, with a very captive audience. The numbers of travellers are certified by IATA and those flying in first and business class are generally in a happier, less stressed mindframe.
   ‘We’ve established a winning formula with the team across the Middle East,’ says Jack Yan, Lucire’s founder.
   ‘Thanks to them I feel confident that New Zealand and Australian advertisers who want to reach a captive, positive audience in the GCC now have a New Zealand lifestyle magazine they can book in.’
   Mr Yan says Lucire KSA offers highly competitive advertising prices for the GCC region.
   The layouts are done in New Zealand and the magazines are printed in Riyadh.
   Nancy Hany of Kingfisher Consultancy officially represents the magazine’s advertising in the GCC, but Lucire’s Wellington office welcomes enquiries from New Zealand and Australia.

Image

Lucire KSA cover, June 2019
High-resolution JPEG, 1,001 kbyte

About Lucire
Lucire, the global fashion magazine (www.lucire.com), started on the web in 1997. In 2003, Lucire became the first fashion industry partner of UN Environment (www.unep.org). In October 2004, it became the first magazine in its sector to extend its brand into a print magazine. By May 2005, it became the first web magazine to spawn international print editions. It is headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand.

Notes to editors
Lucire is a registered trade mark of Jack Yan & Associates and subject to protection in certain jurisdictions. All other trade marks are the properties of their respective owners and are only used in a descriptive fashion without any intention to infringe.

Contact
Jack Yan, Publisher
Lucire
T 64 4 387-3213
E jack.yan@jyanet.com
###

Wellington, October 12 (JY&A Media) Slovenian designer Jure Stojan’s latest typeface family, JY Saj, has been released through JY&A Fonts.
   JY Saj is a 10-weight (five roman, five italic) sans serif typeface family that works particularly well on screen and in print, and in both text and display applications. It balances the artistic and the conventional, according to JY&A Fonts’ founder Jack Yan.
   The New Zealand-based typefoundry, which has been creating digital type since the 1980s, has several releases by Mr Stojan, dating back to JY Koliba in 1999. JY Saj is an evolution of his JY Raj design from 2001, but with far more weights and its more controversial features, which dated the family, revisited.
   The result is a far more practical and legible design, but it retains its artistic flourishes, such as a two-part roman g and a script-like italic counterpart, and a y that flicks rightward.
   Each font has c. 3,500 kerning pairs, as well as a comprehensive Latin character set, and euro and rupee symbols. There is a set of lining numerals as well as fully kerned proportional oldstyle numerals. Despite the large family ranging from Ultra Light to Extra Bold weights, Microsoft programs can handle all the variants as well as Apple ones can.
   ‘In many creative endeavours, the way-out experiments can be considered a step too far; but when some restraint is brought into the process, true beauty emerges. JY Saj finds that balance,’ read the release notes from the specimen.
   The word saj literally translates to since, but it can also be used as a short riposte, said Mr Stojan, much in the same way an English speaker says, ‘Quite.’
   As with previous releases by Mr Stojan through JY&A Fonts, the original design was done in Slovenia and the finishing, including euro and rupee symbols and the kerning, was done in New Zealand. Testing of the finished files took place in both countries.
   The JY Saj family is available at MyFonts, Fontspring, Phil’s Fonts, Typos, and directly from the foundry. A PDF sample may be downloaded from jya.net/fonts, with retail partners linked from jyanet.com/fonts/range.html.
Images
Images for this release may be downloaded at jya.net/info/2017/10/jya-fonts-releases-10-weight-family-jy-saj-by-slovenian-designer-jure-stojan.

JY Saj specimen pages (2017)
PDF, 257 kbyte
About JY&A Fonts
JY&A Fonts (http://jya.net/fonts) is part of Jack Yan & Associates, founded in 1987. It is the oldest digital typefoundry in New Zealand, with its first digital fonts in 1985, and one of the longest-running in the southern hemisphere. JY&A Fonts, which has created typefaces both for retail sale and for private commissions, is known for its meticulous attention to detail, its careful and extensive use of kerning pairs, and elegant, restrained designs. JY&A Fonts represents designs from Jack Yan, Jure Stojan, David Philpott, Greg Bastin, Todd Hallock, Mark Geard, Antonio González de Santiago, and Danielle Smith.
Notes to editors
All trade marks are the properties of their respective owners and are only used in a descriptive fashion without any intention to infringe.
Contacts
Jack Yan, CEO
Jack Yan & Associates
T 64 4 387-3213, F 64 4 387-3213
E jack.yan@jyanet.com
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Wellington, October 9 (JY&A Media) Facebook needs to come clean on its malware scanner provided by Kaspersky, F-Secure, Trend Micro and others, says Jack Yan, whose blog posts on the subject have amassed nearly 120,000 views and continue to be read by people affected by the social media site’s warnings.
   Mr Yan, who runs a communications’ firm, Jack Yan & Associates, in Wellington, New Zealand, says he first confronted Facebook’s malware scanner, a program endorsed publicly by Facebook and reported regularly by the tech press, in January 2016. Facebook would show a checkpoint page, where a user could not proceed till they had downloaded the scanner.
   He claims that running it—his was provided by Kaspersky—knocked out his real antivirus program, and since blogging about the experience has received hundreds of comments and tens of thousands of views. He also says that anyone receiving a malware warning from Facebook can log out and log back in as someone else without getting any such warning, which suggests the computer is not at fault.
   He was surprised to discover that Facebook’s warnings targeted particular users.
   He also says that once installed, the scanner does not appear anywhere in the installed programs’ list, but resides in a hidden directory on the user’s computer.
   He notes that the US press has now become suspicious of Kaspersky because of its Russian origins, but says that Facebook has publicly stated it is working with one of several antivirus partner companies, including ESET, Trend Micro, and F-Secure, and that all are equally responsible.
   However, when he commented on Kaspersky’s blog post about its cooperation with Facebook, his words were promptly deleted, and when Tweeting one of the other antivirus providers, the dialogue abruptly came to an end when the subject of the malware scanner was brought up.
   Mr Yan says he has read through the hundreds of comments on his blog and noted no similarities between the types of people affected other than their use of Windows, but that Facebook’s behaviour was consistent.
   ‘The affected netizens are both political and apolitical, some play games and others don’t, some are on the left and others on the right, and it doesn’t matter where they live,’ he says.
   He says he has been in touch with affected users in his own country, and in the US, UK, India, and Latin America.
   ‘Before April 2016, most users could delete their cookies and re-enter the site, which places great doubt on Facebook’s claims that their computers were infected with malware.
   ‘However, after April 2016, this method stopped working and users had to resort to other means,’ he says. ‘Facebook shifted the goalposts.’
   Users reported that they had run their own malware scans, including scanners made by Facebook’s partners, and usually came up with nothing.
   Even after running the scan, some users would still be unable to post links.
   ‘Generally, people would be locked out for three days to a month if they refused to run the scanner, which is not unlike the sort of failures Facebook experienced in the first part of the 2010s,’ he says.
   Mr Yan says he switched to computers running Mac OS and Linux and was able to bypass the malware checkpoint and a prompt to download software, though he still had malware warnings come up whenever he posted a link. The difference was that he was able to tell Facebook it was in error and he was allowed to continue using the site.
   In September 2014 there was a Facebook outage where users were unable to post status updates, something which the company later attributed to an internal bug.
   Mr Yan says Facebook’s behaviour was very similar to what had happened in 2014, except now it had shifted the blame to the user’s computer.
   He says that there was an increasing amount of reports on Getsatisfaction, a website that hosted support forums on behalf of companies. Facebook eventually shut down its part of the site.
   Three months before the widely reported outage, Mr Yan says he encountered a Facebook block for 69 hours, where he could not post, like or comment, but still had access to the site—exactly what users went through in September 2014.
   He says the way Facebook behaves after it has accused a user of having malware is similar to what happened in 2014, and has a hard time believing that it is the user’s fault or that the user’s computer has malware.
   ‘Everything about this points back to Facebook, and the fact that no one has come out to address users’ concerns over the years they have offered this makes me suspicious.
   ‘It’s as though there’s something faulty with Facebook’s servers, but they have to buy time to repair them. Most people will take the warnings at face value and willingly plant Facebook’s software in a hidden directory on their computers.’
   Mr Yan says a number of netizens have come up with solutions that have been posted on his blog, but worries that, as with Facebook moving the goalposts in April 2016, they would do that again to users who attempt these newer methods.
   He says that the number of views on his blog posts on the topic is increasing consistently, and believes the problem is becoming more widespread.
About Jack Yan & Associates
Started in 1987, Jack Yan & Associates is a communications’ company with businesses in brand consulting, font software and media. JY&A Consulting is connected to Medinge Group, a Swedish branding think-tank, through its founder Jack Yan. JY&A Fonts is New Zealand’s first digital typefoundry and a pioneer in the business. JY&A Media is an early pioneer in online publishing, with its first digital magazine launched in the 1990s; its ventures include Lucire, the international fashion magazine and Autocade, a car encyclopædia. Jack Yan & Associates is headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand, but has licences and other presences globally.
Notes to editors
Original post in January: http://jackyan.com/blog/2016/01/when-facebook-forces-you-to-download-their-anti-malware-your-own-antivirus-gets-knocked-out/
   Follow-up post: http://jackyan.com/blog/2016/01/if-facebook-says-you-have-malware-do-not-download-their-program-heres-a-way-around-it/
   All trade marks are the properties of their respective owners and are only used in a descriptive fashion without any intention to infringe.
Contacts
Jack Yan, CEO
Jack Yan & Associates
T 64 4 387-3213
E jack.yan@jyanet.com
William Shepherd
Multicultural Brand Consultancy
T 1 213 248-4484
E ws@popdocumentary.com
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