TAKEAWAY: Her design talent spans 30 years in both New York and her native Hong Kong. We talk to Nai Lee Lum about the differences she finds living and working in two cultures.
I first heard about the talented Nai Lee Lum through a mutual friend, that best of magazine designers, Bob Newman. He talks often about his friend and colleague Nai Lee Lum, and he finally sent me some samples of her work, noticing that I was in Hong Kong.
I was mesmerized with the cover ideas created by Nai Lee Lum for Fortune Magazine, then was even more particularly interested when Nai Lee told me that she is Creative Director Consultant for Caixin Media, which was the subject of my blog post earlier this week.
Here is how Bob Newman describe Nai Lee Lum to me:
“When Nai Lee Lum was art directing the international edition of Fortune she created a wonderful series of covers, many of them illustrated portraits of Asian and European businesspeople. Her cover designs were about as close as Fortune has ever gotten in recent years to the glory days of the covers of the 30s-50s. Her energy and passion and commitment to craft is exceptional. Nai is perfectly positioned to design in the Chinese language magazine market, because she brings years of experience with American magazine making, and is able to fuse that with her unique understanding of the typographic and graphic demands of the Chinese audience.”
It is this ability to design for and with both audiences in mind that I found of interest, which prompted me to ask her these questions:
Mario: How do you travel between the Chinese and the American cultures?
I was born in Hong Kong and love my own culture. I spent almost my entire career in business magazine design.
I said to myself that it would be interesting to feel what it is like to design a business magazine in Chinese language.
Mario: what was your biggest challenge designing Chinese language magazines?
My biggest challenge when designing Chinese language publications was that they need a lot of support and encouragement even though they have confidence.
Being Chinese, they always feel we don’t understand what they think, even though I am Chinese.
Mario: Do you see opportunities for designers in China? Is it opening to designed publications?
No question about it. There is an opening of China as a great market for designers globally.
They are enthusiastic. They can be bold. They have great sense for interesting visuals. They push to a limit.
For those who would like to sample more of Nai Lee Lum’s work, visit her website:
http://naileelum.com
China and Media
Here I am just before the lecture tonight at Hong Kong University’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre
I was a guest lecturer at Hong Kong University’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre: a great audience of graduate students from around the world.
The seminar was hosted by Professor Yuen Ying Chan, director of the Centre, who introduced me and gave me an update about the graduate school and its global student body.
“We have them from all over, mainland China, Hong Kong, UK, the United States and various European countries, it makes for very smart group discussions on a variety of media topics,” Prof. Ying said.
My presentation was titled Storytelling in the Times of the iPad, and I could see several iPads resting on the laps of the students.
Prof. Ying told me that she was teaching a graduate seminar right after my own presentation, about China and media. (The iPad was officially launched in China last Friday)
I told her how I wish I could take such a class, as intrigued as all of us are by China and its relationship with the press. So, as I was leaving, with less than a minute to go, and as Prof. Ying was nicely thanking me and turning me over to my driver, I could not resist the question:
“Prof. Ying, what is the headline on the China and media?”, I asked.
She looked at me and said: “The Internet has done much to open things up, so we see some light.”
Read about my presentation at Hong Kong University:
http://jmsc.hku.hk/2010/09/storytelling-in-the-times-of-the-ipad/