""The original thinking when I picked the zine format was that, as much as I love the design and effort of cookbooks, their size can make them unwieldy and precious in the kitchen," says Christopher. "And I didn't want to rely on a digital publication as I'm a huge fan of print - even though I cook mostly from my phone. So a zine was the perfect balance of something precious and un-precious.""
""I especially love designing the names for the dishes. They're like little movie posters on the page. You can put so much detail into how they're presented to make someone feel like they understand the vibe of the dish," says Christopher. "A lot of emphasis of course gets put on the photography, but people can underestimate the title of a dish and how it's displayed. Each one is different, so why bother standardising?""
""Sometimes it's not just about collaborator's work but how it's incorporated. Like in our last issue which was all about Taiwan, I asked the talented Ze Lai (aka Silky Rabbit) to essentially draw all over the zine, and react to the layouts I made and mess with them," says Christopher. "Because the theme spoke a lot about Taiwan's incredibly expressive and experimental art scene. It felt right not containing her work, but instead letting it take over.""
FatBoy operates as a small, personal print zine that reads like a shared diary between artists and food enthusiasts across six issues. The zine format replaces bulky cookbooks with a tactile, usable object that balances being precious and practical. Visual design is central: dish names are crafted like movie posters, photography is emphasised, and typography, colour palettes, and easter eggs build distinct issue-specific worlds. Collaboration is integrated into layouts, sometimes allowing contributors to alter or take over pages. Past themed issues have drawn on Hong Kong ceramic patterns and Taiwan's expressive art scene, while new issues explore gradients and geometry.
Read at Itsnicethat
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