Bronze Print and Published Media Design · 2025
Roots Zines
by Xun Zuo
- A' Design Award 2025 Bronze Winner in Print and Published Media Design
- Awarded April 15, 2025
- CLIENT: Xunzuodesign
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 50,819
- Verification code 2A5E62BE66 · Verify this award
About Roots Zines
This modular publication consists of zines, each crafted with a visual language reflecting the identity of storytellers. Centered around New York coffee shops, it captures how new immigrants navigate connection and belonging. The sewn and vacuum sealed format evokes impermanence and emotional tension. Through personal narratives, the project uncovers the social value of small businesses and reframes emotional design as a tool for inclusion.
Xun Zuo's Roots Zines participates in the vibrant contemporary resurgence of independent publishing and zine culture, a movement that reclaims analog print production as site of creative experimentation, personal expression, and community building within increasingly digital creative economies, where the physical booklet format functions simultaneously as artistic object, editorial platform, and pedagogical investigation into the relationship between form and content, design language and cultural narrative, demonstrating sophisticated understanding of typographic hierarchy through the deployment of large-scale sans-serif letterforms that assert immediate visual presence while maintaining legibility across varying reading distances, with each publication cover functioning as miniature compositional study in chromatic relationships and spatial organization, suggesting influences from Swiss modernist clarity, punk DIY aesthetics, contemporary digital color palettes, and risograph printing traditions that celebrate chromatic vibration and registration imperfection as aesthetic virtue, where the apparent thematic range spanning architectural discourse, cultural cuisine, personal narrative, and conceptual investigation reveals zines as flexible format capable of accommodating diverse content while maintaining cohesive visual identity through consistent design principles, with the technical execution demonstrating facility with multi-page binding construction, cover stock selection balancing durability with tactile appeal, and printing methodology that achieves saturated color reproduction suggesting offset or high-quality digital printing rather than photocopied origins traditionally associated with zine production, though retaining the accessible scale and independent spirit that defines the format, while the presentation arrangement for documentation purposes transforms individual publications into collective installation that invites consideration of how serial publication builds cumulative meaning, how graphic identity systems create visual coherence across thematic diversity, and how the zine format occupies liminal territory between ephemeral artifact and archival document, between personal expression and public circulation, between artistic practice and accessible communication, with the chromatic boldness and typographic confidence suggesting work emerging from graphic design education or practice while maintaining experimental openness characteristic of independent publishing outside commercial constraints, where the overall achievement resides in the sophisticated balance between visual impact and intellectual substance, between aesthetic coherence and thematic breadth, between professional execution and DIY ethos, inviting viewers to consider questions about the relationship between format and content, the role of independent media in contemporary visual culture, and how physical print objects create different modes of engagement than digital equivalents, contemplating what knowledge, perspectives, and creative possibilities emerge when individuals claim agency over their own publication means.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- A book of zines, each a voice, a mood, a rhythm. Designed with visualized personal styles from the storyteller, these fragments emerge from coffee shops in New York, where new immigrants seek connection in a fast moving city. Loosely sewn and vacuum sealed, the form speaks of impermanence. This modular archive becomes both vessel and invitation, mapping emotion, honoring small businesses, and asking what design can do when it listens.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- 203.2 mm x 139.7 mm zine, 6 zines total, 120 pages, printed media with sewn binding, vacuum sealed in a plastic bag.
- Tags
- Zine, Book, Ethnographic Research, Branding, Customer Experience
- Production Technology
- A modular collection of zines, each using different paper stocks, printing methods, and a mix of sewn and Coptic binding. Every material choice was shaped by conversations with storytellers. Inspired by the Chinese Red Thread legend, the bindings reflect connection and distance. A business card included in the set acts as an invitation, extending the narrative and welcoming new voices into the ongoing story.
- Design Challenge
- The biggest challenge was conducting interviews with storytellers in a neutral, non leading way, helping them share their stories without guiding them toward specific narratives about their relationship with coffee and local culture. This was particularly challenging because the influence of environment, brand design, and tone on consumers, especially who are not native speakers, is often indirect.
- Project Duration
- An ongoing project started in August 2022. The most recent update was in July 2024.
- Operation Flow
- This book, or zine collection, connects with readers through print in a tangible way. Its unique visual language tells stories while reflecting the personal style of each storyteller. The first zine introduces the inspiration of the project, followed by others sharing diverse stories, reinforcing community. The final zine guides readers on how to participate and invites them to contribute. A business card on the vacuum sealed packaging provides submission details.
- Research
- This research combines qualitative and quantitative methods to explore how coffee connects foreign individuals to local communities. It aims to understand how cafe branding influences consumer decision making. Data was collected through interviews, questionnaires, and cultural probes with over 40 participants. The findings emphasize the significance of emotional connections in branding and suggest that businesses can enhance consumer engagement by focusing on emotional design in real life interactions.
- Inspiration
- Coffee branding often reflects local culture and community, as coffee shops serve as social anchors. As a former international student, I saw coffee, a global symbol, as a bridge to belonging. I visited local cafes across New York, gathering stories from outsiders and navigating connections. This project is both a storytelling platform and a reflection on how brand and experience design shape human relationships.
Colors of Roots Zines
Get Roots Zines
Grand Interview about Roots Zines
In book design, the sequence and rhythm are dictated by the author. In this work, I seek to dismantle that curatorial authority in favor of a more democratized experience. By deconstructing the very structure of the book, I invite readers to define their own order and method of engagement, allowing them to interpret the narratives through their own lens. The vacuum-sealed packaging, drawing inspiration from coffee preservation, serves as a metaphor for safeguarding these stories and their endurance over time.
The conversations with the interviewees extended far beyond the coffee itself. These dialogues unfolded organically, encompassing their aesthetics, experience, and even their social media and private stories. I asked about the preferences of materials and colors, while also guiding them to consider the symbolic meanings in the design choices.
I conducted my inquiries in environments where participants felt most at ease. Asking questions without bias, observing, and documenting. My training in ethnographic research at Pratt Institute equipped me with the tools to approach these conversations with neutrality and sensitivity. Often, our dialogues unfolded in coffee shops chosen by the participants themselves. These familiar and reassuring settings created a sense of safety, allowing them to voice what they genuinely wished to share.
In traditional Chinese culture, people believe in the notion of Yuanfen, a mysterious force that connects strangers through unseen bonds. Rather than being pursued deliberately, it is something to be accepted as it unfolds. Similar sensibilities can be found across many other cultures. Within a community, individuals often feel estranged from the world around them, whether due to language, culture, or other barriers, which makes these unexpected encounters of Yuanfen all the more cherished. The invocation of the Red Thread legend pays homage to this experience.
In traditional book design, external information is often placed on the front matter or back cover; however, this would compromise the independence of each story and my position as a neutral observer. Instead, I positioned the business card outside the vacuum-sealed package, acknowledging my role as the storyteller. I envisioned this gesture as a way of extending the project beyond the book itself - transforming it into an invitation, allowing the work to transcend the informational limits of the book's physical structure.
The process was particularly challenging, as each individual's perspective was unique. I had to ensure that everyone's voice was heard while still maintaining a sense of cohesion across the book or this collection of zines. To achieve this, I designed and implemented a modular system: each participant responded to a set of questions and contributed specific photographs, and I, as the author, conducted contextual research, such as the history of the cafe we discussed, the neighborhood, and the site it occupies. These modules were then arranged in a deliberate sequence. It is this order and system that provide consistency across the zines, even as each zine appears entirely different on its own.
I have always been passionate about coffee culture, immigrant culture, and brand design. I observed that many multinational coffee brands are widely celebrated, yet they are not always culturally representative. Interestingly, however, new immigrants tend to gravitate toward these global chains because they are familiar, they have tried them before, or they simply feel safer within a recognizable brand environment. This, paradoxically, can make it harder for them to integrate into local culture, while also fueling negative sentiment and even tension among local businesses. The stories in my book serve as a case study, offering brands valuable insights into how they might better localize themselves within today's culture landscapes.
Design, especially brand design, aims to build a platform that serves not only business owners but also consumers. Today's consumers are increasingly unsatisfied with the fulfillment of material needs alone. Instead, they seek forms of spiritual or emotional fulfillment through their acts of consumption. This pursuit of meaning is cross-cultural. Yet, in attempting to address diverse cultural contexts, many contemporary designs adopt a neutral stance, ironically rendering the brand image distant and impersonal. Emotional design offers a way to bridge this gap. By genuinely understanding the people they serve, brands can establish more empathetic platforms within communities, creating deeper connections with their consumers.
Roots Zines will not be digitized. While I believe digitalization is a significant advancement, in this case it risk undermining the intimacy and immediacy of the words and stories. I envision Roots Zines continuing in print form, as a timeless project documenting the evolving landscapes of communities, immigrants, and brands. As it grows, the project aspires to become a democratized magazine, published periodically, accessible to diverse voices, and serving as an archive of stories, emotions, and transformations in brand design. In resisting digital translation, the work preserves the tactile and human qualities of storytelling, ensuring that each edition remain both a record of its time and a vessel of future reflection.
As a designer working with culturally sensitives subjects, especially within cros-cultural contexts, the most ideal approach is to begin from one's own cultural background. This becomes a point of entry, a way to establish authentic connections while respecting the space of dialogue. When design expands into cross-cultural territory, the role of the designer should shift toward that of a visual mediator rather than a prescriptive voice. The task is not to dominate the narrative with personal opinions, nor to self-censor in anticipation of outcomes, but to remain as neutral as possible. By positioning oneself as a tool of visual translation rather than a director of meaning, the process allows unexpected insights to emerge, insights shaped by participants, contects, and stories themselves.