For the MAEKAN and DSPTCH family, we’ve watched each other grow with great interest. Both of us share a similar perspective on creating and putting things out into the world. So when we first decided to explore creating product, DSPTCH was a na

Building the Brand — Adam Studios

Jul 9th, 2020 33m 42s

After a long hiatus, we’re back with another episode of Building The Brand. Most crucially, this episode is hosted by MAEKAN founders Eugene Kan and Alex Maeland, who talk about the inception of Adam Studios, the creative agency they founded th

Two Acres at a Time — Kristyn Leach of Namu Farm

1 Nov 16th, 2019 30m 38s

Namu Farm is a quaint two-acre property located an hour and a half outside of San Francisco. In a time when the topic of food and industry generally focuses on scale and size, a visit to the farm is a timely reminder of where our food comes fro

Lars Williams — Creating Sense Memories with Empirical Spirts

Sep 20th, 2019 23m 51s

In a past lifetime, Copenhagen’s Refshaleøen island was far different than today. The massive infrastructure was home to a huge boat building operation. But it has since come to represent the bedrock of some of Copenhagen’s, and Denmark’s, most

MAEKAN & BYBORRE — Redefining Comfort: Céline Pham

Apr 2nd, 2019 16m 47s

Comfort. It’s something essential to our lives.The degree of comfort we experience can impact how we view the world around us. Comfort can take shape in a practical sense. Are we dry? Are we able to move freely? Are we confident about how we l

502 Bad Gateway — An Antidote to Online Fast Fashion

Mar 22nd, 2019 34m 12s

502 Bad Gateway is the best life decision Seth Footring has made in recent years. By day, Seth works in the photo and eCommerce department of ASOS in London, by night—and in all other spare waking hours—he focuses his efforts on being the c

Understanding Our World Through Objects — Johanna Agerman Ross

Mar 14th, 2019 23m 50s

The value of an object is different for everyone. If you’re practical above all else, an object’s function, efficiency, and affordability are probably the most important aspects. If you’re drawn to beautiful things, the way an object looks and

Remembering Triple X — Hong Kong's Underground Mecca

Mar 7th, 2019 47m 37s

Gone before its time, XXX (known popularly as “Triple X”) was a club not far from the MAEKAN Office that was a hotspot for underground culture and music on Hong Kong’s Kowloon side. The venue of choice for acts like OKOKOK, Yeti Out and Eri

MAEKAN & BYBORRE — Redefining Comfort: Rebecca Kelley

Feb 18th, 2019 19m 43s

Floating in Time — Daniel Arsham Brings Us Static Mythologies

Feb 4th, 2019 11m 33s

“Looking back at it, it feels like I’m jumping around a lot, but all of the different types of work, whether it’s an installation or in the architecture studio that I have, they’re all in service of the same goal—which is to take our everyda

MAEKAN Session — The Need for Criticism

Jan 9th, 2019 1h 2m

The growth of social media gives off the perception that the world’s smaller and more connected, but conversely, this doesn’t necessarily make the world easier to understand. In our MAEKAN Session titled The Need for Criticism, we focused on th

To Be a Member of a Club You Never Wanted to Join — Conversing with Mike Shinoda

Dec 2nd, 2018 42m 36s

Studies suggest that mental illness just may be the new normal—with an overwhelming amount of the population suffering from depression, anxiety, or a deep rooted sadness at one point or another in their lives. While some may attempt to ignore s

Building the Brand — Community Governance

Nov 27th, 2018 26m 24s

In this Building the Brand, Eugene sits down with Scott to talk about the role of community governance in a brand strategy. It's never been easier to start and build a brand today, but a side effect of this is building loyalty has become that m

Observations Abroad with Joan Wong — Part II

Nov 25th, 2018 21m 42s

Joan Wong worked at Penguin Random House in New York for the past five years as a book cover designer. Her more well-known work includes the paperback covers of the Crazy Rich Asians series by Kevin Kwan, Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted

Celebrating and Evaluating — A Recap of Unexpected Connections

Nov 19th, 2018 30m 59s

I have a trick for when I meet new people in order to get more quickly into a substantiative conversation. I resist, for the entire meeting if possible, asking the person that I’ve just met what they do for a living. I’m not always able to swer

Good Earth for Good Herb — Summerland and the Perfect Ceramic Bong

Nov 19th, 2018 33m 8s

An eternal summer on a coast of smooth white sand represented in ceramics. Liam Kaczmar set out to make what he couldn’t find elsewhere when he dreamed up Summerland. His one-man operation in San Francisco has allowed him to escape the dissatis

From the Portfolio of Guillaume Ferrand

Nov 13th, 2018 14m 31s

Guillaume Ferrand is an illustrator who approaches his work with careful research, deliberate intentions, and a willingness to experiment. He draws inspiration from literature, old movies, classical paintings, architecture, fashion collections,

An Hour with Tan Dun — Master Composer and Force of Culture

Oct 17th, 2018 16m 40s

Recently, MAEKAN teamed with Hong Kong’s most renowned publication SCMP to produce a story on Tan Dun, a master composer and living Chinese national treasure.Most familiar to international audiences for his work scoring Ang Lee’s Crouching T

Shochu & Soju — Yardbird's Elliot Faber Breaks Down The World's Favorite Rice Wines

Oct 7th, 2018 12m 15s

As the distilled spirit of choice in South Korea, soju has quickly gained popularity alongside the country’s cultural exports. No stranger to the different spirits of the world, especially those in Asia, Yardbird beverage director, and Sake Sam

Authenticity and Transparency in Fashion Media — The Fashion Law with Julie Zerbo

Sep 30th, 2018 28m 46s

Julie Zerbo began The Fashion Law while she was still in law school, using it as a way to ground the theory that she was learning in something concrete. Julie’s website originates around the explosion in popularity of fashion blogging. Those wh

There is No Handbook — Chapter-by-Chapter with Director Decatur Dan

Sep 24th, 2018 51m 25s

Rarely do creatives start their careers with a particular defined path. It requires a few bumps and bruises, and wrong turns to find the right path. Decatur Dan, otherwise known as Daniel Hall, has come up through the ranks in a way that’s almo

Product Research Through Culture — Behzod Sirjani and How Slack Humanizes Work

Sep 21st, 2018 52m 36s

Researcher and photographer Behzod Sirjani has dedicated his career towards the understanding of culture. It has come through the lens of both social media, at Facebook and more recently with remote and digital work at Slack. The interactions w

MAEKAN Travel Diary — Conversing through Football in Egypt

Sep 8th, 2018 3m 25s

Hey, everyone. My name is Umar Issa. I’m from Los Angeles, California and recently I took a trip to Egypt for a few weeks.Egypt is a place I’ve wanted to visit for so long. It’s known in Arabic as Umm al-Dunya which means “mother of the world”

Anything Can be Fascinating — Avery Trufelman of 99% Invisible on Telling Stories Well

Sep 1st, 2018 44m 8s

Avery Trufelman is a producer at 99% Invisible, an extremely popular podcast created by Roman Mars. She crafts stories about things overlooked and believes anything can be a good story when told correctly. “If you go far enough away and zoom ou

Sights & Sounds — Chris da Canha

Aug 30th, 2018 13m 40s

Chris da Canha is a skateboarder and photographer who hails from Durban, South Africa, but currently calls South Korea home.A regular contributing photographer for MAEKAN, he has shot many of our stories in Seoul, where he is currently based.