Yolk magazine

YOLK was a quarterly magazine for young Asian Americans. It was published by InformAsian Media, Inc. (IAMI) between 1994 and 2004, and it was headquartered in Alhambra, California, in Greater Los Angeles. The later incarnations of the magazine were titled Yolk: GenerAsian Next 2.0.

It was founded in 1994 by Tommy Tam, Tin Yen, and Amy Lee Tu. Tommy Tam was in charge of operations, Tin Yen was the graphic designer/art director, and Amy Tu oversaw the financial aspects of the magazine.

Based in Los Angeles, YOLK's reflection of its generation combines sections on fashion, entertainment and music, book reviews, with occasional in-your-face attacks on our society's misunderstandings of Asian culture. The magazine's premise is that there is something common to Japanese, Korean and Chinese Americans, as well as Vietnamese, Filipinos, Indians and other Asian American groups.

YOLK's first editor was Philip Chung, but managing editor, Larry Tazuma, came up with the magazine's name. "An egg yolk is yellow," he said," and so is the nominal color of Asian people's skin, regardless of nationality." "YOLK draws a strong reaction. But it simply stands for the color of our skin," he says. "It's what connects all Asians." Performance artist and professor Alex Luu served as its editor and graphic designer Max Medina/Mystery Parade served as the Art Designer of YOLK. Staff writers include XD Lim and Margaret Rhee.

As the business grew, operations expanded into the clothing business. YOLK was well known for producing its line of Got Rice? t-shirts under the Brand Fury name. Popular sellers included phrases such as Got Rice?, Got Sushi?, Got Adobo? and Got Pho?

Circulation reached a high of 50,000 in 2000 and targeted English-fluent college-educated Asian Americans coming from various cultures. In 2001, Stanley Lim came in as the new publisher of the magazine. He proposed a new formula heavy on "guy stuff"—reviews of video games and tech gadgets, interviews with models and more bikini-clad women, both on the cover and throughout the pages. However, YOLK was not able to turn the corner and folded in 2004 after its 10-year, 31-issue run.

Tommy Tam is currently the VP of Marketing at Dream Tube Entertainment. Tin Yen is still involved with graphic design today and has taught at UCLA Extension in the graphic design program. He founded creative agency TYS Creative, Inc. Amy Lee Tu is currently the Head of Marketing at Indomina Releasing.

As Yolk was closing, Honda Motor Co. offered a four month advertising contract. Lim and the editorial staff changed the publication into a web publication, and asked Honda to provide online advertising banners in lieu of print advertisements. Honda agreed to the change, and Chopblock.com became active.