You're awesome!
Jancat Art is here to help you believe it
We are a brand built around happiness and helping others share it, through creative art and food.
In a world full of stressful work, where people seem to fast-forward through life, the lazy chubby cartoon cat embodies the simple thought that we are all amazing in our own way and that we all deserve to be happy.
We believe that one is never lazy or "stuck" in life - simply unfocused for the lack of good company, joyful art and truly nourishing food.
We are here to give our local community a safe space to recharge, to bring old friends, to find new ones, and to empower the mind and body through food that's designed to nourish and heal, more so than to squeeze out the last drop of sugar-fueled fleeting motivation.
Worldwide, we'd like to spread joy through manufacturing gifts that are both artsy, cute and practical - tokens of love and friendship that don't collect dust on a shelf, but keep you company every day by helping you with something meaningful. These are stationery products to help you with journaling to sort your mind, clothing to keep you warm, drinkware to help you stay hydrated throughout the day, and a whole bunch of other useful things.
Our Story
2020
In the middle of the COVID pandemic lockdowns, Ellen transforms half the Toronto apartment she is confined to into an art studio and starts an online business manufacturing and selling stickers with her original artwork.
2021
Ellen Yin Studio makes a sticker sheet with cute cartoon animals for each month of the year. The month of January happened to be a chubby cat that impressed Kirill so much that he suggested the cat deserves its own brand.
The "January Cat" is born, or "Jancat" for short.
2022
Jancat gains 100,000 followers on social media around the world as we ship the expanded collection of dozens of cute designs on stickers, art prints, cups and now even clothing, as Ellen purchases a professional embroidery machine.
Ellen and Kirill move to St Thomas - a choice that was initially a random pin placed on the map becomes their new hometown as they enjoy the peace and friendliness of the railway city community and understand the growth potential of its economy and business.
Jancat joins the Horton Farmers' Market and starts making new friends around the neighbourhood.
2023
Jancat Art studio finds a new home at 584 Talbot St and transforms a vacant old bank branch into a showroom for Jancat art products.
Shortly after launch, Ellen launches her own bubble tea cafe in the same space, right beside the art merchandise display.
What we stand for
100% Original, Independent Art
We believe in coming up with your own ideas and having courage to share them with the world. As an independent artist, Ellen relentlessly works on every single design and comes up with every single artwork that we sell, from scratch.
We believe in working with your own hands and mind, and that any collaboration should be open, honest and clear.
We are a family-owned business that will scale and will stay in the family, to make sure we do not stray from our values.
Empowering Local
Through our work, we hope to show that honest and original independent business can thrive within, and despite, the present-day economy, without compromising ethics and core values; that every single person, no matter their wealth or background, has equal opportunity to get their creativity recognized by the world
We hope to see more of our friends and neighbours be able to work on what they truly love doing and contribute to the local economy, and we want to see our community grow and prosper.
We hope that, with time, we can share experience, knowledge and tools help others achieve this too.
Who are Ellen & Kirill
Meet the Jancat family business team
Ellen Yin
Founder, Artist, Art Production and Head ChefEllen spent over a decade living in Japan, while obtaining her university degree as well as working at and managing authentic restaurants and izakayas, before moving to Canada and continuing her experience in restaurant management.
With a natural talent for visual and digital art, she was able to turn her creativity into a fully-fledged business at Jancat.
Ellen also has deep expertise in business organization, coming from a family of serial entrepreneurs, as well as a solid background in digital media, graphic design and tech startup growth engineering that she practiced with great success helping out Kirill with his software consulting practice throughout the last few years.
At Jancat, Ellen enjoys spending time in our studio, coming up and testing out amazing new art product ideas. She multitasks a lot between product development, making orders for customers, representing us at local community events, serving cafe customers and inventing new menu items.
Kirill Erokhin
General Manager, Kitchen Operations LeadKirill is actually a software developer with a Bachelor of Computer Science from University of Waterloo and 15+ years of experience in tech before joining Jancat full-time.
With the knowledge of business processes and management that he picked up throughout his work, and some prior experience in food services and catering, Kirill is now the "sous-chef" and barista working under Ellen's guidance to organize the Jancat cafe kitchen workflow and make the orders for our cafe customers.
Kirill also applies his business experience to handle our accounting, IT, data analytics, purchasing/inventory, regulatory compliance and online marketing, while also running his own new tech startup.
You may see him very often assembling bubble teas and making lattes at the bar, or with a laptop at one of our tables.
Looking to collaborate or to work at Jancat?
We're not hiring at the moment, but you can send your resume to hr@jancat.art. Please note we only accept PDF resumes at the moment.
Please save the environment and avoid printing your resume! Together, we can save the planet, while finding you a potential fit in our team in the future.
If you are a potential supplier/contractor, please email suppliers@jancat.art
If you would like to suggest a collaboration project, please email collaboration@jancat.art