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pathways in pictures: your story, your art
JIMMY K.W. CHAN
AAS GRAPHIC DESIGN ’00 CHAIRMAN & CEO, SEMEIOTICS, INC. www.semeiotics.com Alum Jimmy Chan began his career with a local fashion venture and now heads up Semeiotics, Inc., a global design enterprise. We invited Chan to trace his career path and share his innovative partner-based business model, which balances “creativity with commerciality.” These pages, designed with Chan, tell his story. When Jimmy Chan met fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto, a colleague found Chan’s enthusiasm disconcerting. “You may be embarrassed, but I’m not,” Chan responded, unperturbed. “Yamamoto is someone I’ve always admired.” Such confidence and respect for creativity characterize Chan’s approach to design and are reflected in his successful career.
Chan tested his paradigm by partnering with a Toronto design firm to found Semeiotics, a multidisciplinary creative agency. When family circumstances took him to Hong Kong, Chan created a local office that was soon designing interiors for Motorola’s Hong Kong offices and partnering with fashion label Evisu to open shops. Chan joined forces in 2005 with
“Any designer can come up with products. What I want with Semeiotics is to produce something I can proudly hold, both physically and philosophically.” Hong Kong-born and Torontoraised, Chan began his career by purchasing Uncle Otis, a local boutique presenting fashion and music in a striking space. With brother Jacky, Chan expanded the business, witnessing the effect on customers of images such as ads and interiors. To harness that power, Chan came to Parsons in 1998, earning an AAS Graphic Design degree. He was then hired as a graphic designer in a Stockholm ad agency before returning to New York. There, he created a business model based on partnerships—rather than clientconsultant relationships—that free projects from market demands. “I prefer to work with people rather than for them,” Chan explains.
influential designer Martine Sitbon to establish a fashion venture, Rue du Mail, and in 2008, with Hong Kong retailer D-Mop, Yamamoto, and Adidas to open a Y-3 store in New York. Each partner gave Semeiotics another office, expanding the agency. Today Chan’s firm is developing services in interactive design and new media and working on collaboration software by Semeiotics Technologies, collections for Rue du Mail, and other partnerships in different design industries around the world. Chan welcomes Parsons students to Semeiotics’ offices to further his mission of “empowering creativity”—a principle he learned at Parsons and practices globally.
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