Patrick Yan

Thoughts

About me

Generasian 2010–2012

Winner of the NYU President’s Service Award for our work in unifying the diverse NYU Asian American populations by providing a forum for cultural analysis, social commentary, and literary expression.

Co-founded NYU’s premier Asian American publication with Editor-in-Chief Sondra Morishima. I direct the design of all our publications. I also edit the articles and lead the organization and management of our staff.

My key project was the creation and launch of the Generasian blog in October 2010. It has since grown to 800+ unique monthly readers and 230+ followers. With heaps of short prose, events, and links, we are cultivating our own niche. We are now working to incorporate video posts, starting with our exclusive interview with Aziatix and our coverage of the Girls’ Generation craze in NYC.

Some of our popular past posts:

Yellow Pages 2009–2010

Co-founded Duke University’s only Asian American publication with Editor-in-Chief Michelle Fang. Directed the design of the first publication, leading a team of four layout designers. Also edited articles and facilitated organization of our staff.

Vertices 2009

Designed the Duke University Journal Technology and Science.

H4XR 2007–2009

Created a file sharing and URL shortening web service. One step drag-and-drop with no registration allowed anyone to upload and share images, files, and links extremely easily. At its peak, H4XR was sharing over 300,000 files with 30,000 unique users per month. As the first non-exclusive service of its kind, H4XR spawned many community-created widgets and themes. H4XR was shut down on June 2009.

Typographic Apparel (Various) 2008–2010

Shirts and hoodies designed for organizations in my freetime.

Silver Bullet 2008

Designed award-winning high school yearbook cover and layouts. Managed reporting, photographing, and editing staff of 28. Edited all articles in 386 page book. Unprecented revenues of over $100,000 profits and over $15,000 led to my proposal and execution of the purchase of a new high-end Mac lab to replace aging Dell PCs.

Aeroesque & Pro 2007

Interface themes designed for the MacThemes Theme for a Week contest. Garnered 1500 and 1400 votes, respectively. Aeroesque won the judges’ praises and won first place.

iMobil 2006

The imaginary Apple mobile phone that we were all dreaming about (back in those pre-iPhone days). I designed these mockups to show a clean interface navigated by touch gestures. My proposed iChat video feature wouldn’t show up until the iPhone 4 introduced FaceTime to the world.

Dumplings 2010

A portrayal of familial customs. As a northern Chinese family, we eat 饺子 (dumplings) on Chinese New Year.

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Mapping Self Identity 2010

Created throughout the course of ARTVIS 169S Special Topics in Visual Arts at Duke University. I relayed my self-exploration and self-reflection through intepretive cartography. These pieces ultimately composed the “atlas” of my life. I also printed a limited series of silkscreen editions.

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Fruity 2009

As my high school senior year Advanced Placement 2-D Design Concentration project, I created a portfolio of 12 fruit-inspired designs that starts with commercial implementations and transitions into abstract representations of fruits.

As the abstract representation of the fruit grows, the literal representation shrinks. The common visual thread tying my series together is movement and color. I also explored various other design elements: repetition, patterns, monochrome, typography, depth, alignment, and more.

Through this intensive project, I developed not just as an artist but also as a disciplined, creative thinker.

I received a 5 out of 5 on the AP 2-D Design exam.

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Various Analog Artworks 2008

ECAASU 2011

A comprehensive identity and web solution integrated with Wufoo to handle registration and payment. The clean and visual, typography-heavy design coupled with Duke Blue modernized the brand of one of the oldest conferences in America.

TRIM-edicine 2011

Identity and web solution for a biomedical technology startup. With the goal of attracting investors and partners, I crafted a simple wordmark with a decorative ligature. The hyphen connecting the portmanteau is constructed from the negative space, which also forms a medical cross.

Mumu Creative 2011

Identity for a creative agency dedicated to bringing Western design principles and quality to the Chinese web.

Dalian Printing 2011

Web solution for a printing company. Multilingual support was built into the content management system, automatically displaying content available in the user's language. New information architecture made product information and order contact forms more easily accessible. Ditched old Flash and table layouts for a modern, accessible web design, completely revamping the company image.

Duke University Transit System 2010

Designed a solution for Duke’s bus route maps. Consolidated 4 bus route maps into one map, eliminating excess distracting information and cluttering elements. The 0°, 90°, and 45° grid portrayed approximate geographic directions while making routes more readable.

VoraciTee 2010

Identity and web concept for a startup devoted to bringing good design to social activism that I worked on. This drastic brand change signaled the change from a corporate services firm to a web-based t-shirt shop. The fresh skeuomorphic cloth styling and unique typography gave the young startup a personality.

Duke Partnership for Service 2010

Revamped the identity and website of Duke’s largest student organization by budget. To represent all of Duke’s volunteer organizations, the image needed to stay professional and yet portray the youthfulness of Blue Devil volunteers. The new website brought together not just information, events, and news but also room reservations, photo galleries, surveys, and social media.

Center for Documentary Studies 2010

Redesigned one of Duke’s institution’s decade-old website, incorporating high quality media and restructuring the information architecture to allow for easier navigation and organization of content. The complete visual refresh followed existing branding, while modernizing their web presence.

Duke Asian Students Association 2009

Rebranded Duke's largest cultural organization with the intention of raising awareness and modernizing the image. With new publicity campaigns and the adoption of Facebook Group and Events, participation increased.

QuickDuke 2009

Identity and web solution for the popular Duke shortcuts website. Replaced the previous pure text list of links with a grid ordered by frequency of access.

Various Identities 2008–2009

Various Icons 2006–2008

Mac OS X icons designed and released for personal use.