About
“Inspire your world”
AERIS is an online magazine for young, open-minded people who are from, or bear a connection to, China. Published in Mandarin and English side-by-side every quarter at www.aerismagazine.com (with iPad download available too), AERIS is the world’s first bilingual lifestyle publication made just for young, creative China.
AERIS was founded by a Malaysian-Chinese girl, Amanda Siew, while studying medicine in Liverpool, UK. She was 21. Using her many fashion contacts, she pulled together an online lifestyle magazine from her bedroom. Her close friend, Grace Brown, who went to school with her in Hong Kong and trained at CNN, started contributing fashion pieces and become the Fashion Editor.
Amanda, who always loved reading biographies of successful people, realized there was a lack of magazine content about inspiring, young Chinese people. She made Grace the Creative Director, using her passion for talking and creativity to interview inspiring people, share stories and bring young Chinese out of their shell…
Their mutual friend from school, Sophie Bent – a lover of the written word – stepped up to the task of managing their brand and image as Communications Director, while finishing off a Masters of PR in Sydney.
A fourth, very energetic school friend soon started “helping out” – avidly telling her many, many friends about the magazine on Facebook (even when they were still getting it right). Cherry Ng (a.k.a. ‘the little Cherry’) became AERIS’ Marketing Director and soon, Managing Director.
For a generation of Chinese who grew up surrounded by luxury and searching for something more,AERIS’ mission became to offer them the perspective to realize that they can inspire their world for the better – be it through inventive photography, funky design, or lifting a music school for Afghanistan’s street orphans off the ground.
Caroline Li, a young girl from Hunan and Shanghai joined as an intern, trained at Xinhua News Agency. With her passion for Chinese literature, writing and branding, she became the China Editor, giving Grace and Cherry all the guidance and feedback they needed to continuously improve the product for young, Chinese people.
Meanwhile, Amanda went on to qualify as a Doctor and handed over to Grace – the new Editor-in-Chief.
Upon finding a treasured team of writers around the world (including Chris Sim, a food and travel bon vivant in Amsterdam), an exceptionally talented designer in Jessica Li (studying at Central Saint Martins in London) and a grammar-loving Deputy Editor in Chong Shao from Nanjing (a Sydney law graduate), AERIS is finally fulfilling that mission – being the friend who inspires you to be who you are, not who you are told to be.
What are you waiting for? Inspire your world…
