From med student to magazine editor
Home NZ editor Jeremy Hansen spoke to a Spark crowd about combining his love of architecture and journalism.
Do what you enjoy and work hard at it. That’s the advice to students from Home NZ magazine editor Jeremy Hansen, who this week celebrated 10 years at the magazine.
He spoke on Tuesday at the Wintec Hub events room podium before a crowd of at least 100, including Media Arts students and tutors.
As one of the speakers at Wintec’s annual Spark week, Hansen modestly described his career journey from medical student to the editor of one of New Zealand’s most successful home architecture magazines.
A boarding student at Napier Boys’ High, Hansen used his good grades to study to get into medical school before moving to an English Bachelor’s degree at Otago University. He followed that with a one year journalism diploma in Auckland, where he moved his aim towards the magazine industry. “I grew up reading the Listener…I loved magazines.”
After being chastised by his tutor for writing one of his articles in the first person, Hansen sent the article to Metro magazine, who ended up publishing the article in their monthly edition. “Pissed my tutor off to no end!” Hansen laughed.
He became a Metro staff writer before moving to Hong Kong after his boyfriend got a job at American Express. He spent five years working for such press as HK magazine and Asia Week. After this he moved to Wellington to work with Radio NZ for three years, before landing a job on the television art show Frontseat. Finally in 2005 Hansen was offered a job as editor for Home NZ.
“Being able to focus on architecture in a journalistic way is really fulfilling,” he noted, reflecting on his desire once to pursue architecture. “I thought about going to architecture school after leaving school, but the careers advisor said ‘if you can’t draw then don’t bother’.”
Among his many achievements, Hansen has published two successful books: Modern: NZ Homes from 1938-1977 and Villa: From Heritage to Contemporary Living.
Hansen answered students’ questions after his talk, and gave advice to them on being a journalist in this digital age. “You should do what you enjoy doing. Once you find that, you work hard at it,” advised Hansen, adding to always work, keep writing, photographing and posting online. “Don’t wait for an opportunity.”
