RICE Zine

The Context

RICE is a zine born from the 2024 U.S.-ASEAN Women's Leadership Academy for YSEALI, produced in collaboration with Wedu Global and the Feminist Food Journal. Sixty young women food security leaders from eleven Southeast Asian countries, including scientists, farmers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers, wrote ten stories exploring the connections between rice, food security, climate resilience, and gender equity across the ASEAN region. The zine needed a visual identity that could honor both the weight of the subject matter and the energy of the women telling these stories.

The Approach

We created the visual identity, editorial layout, and a series of original collages for the zine. Deep research into the cultural contexts of each story guided the choice of colors, textures, and visual elements, grounding the design in the specific Asian cultures the stories were coming from. The collages weave together the personal and political dimensions of each piece. The layout was built to feel like a publication worth holding onto, not a program report.

RICE is now published and distributed through Wedu's global network, carrying the voices of sixty women leaders into the wider conversation on food security, climate, and gender across Southeast Asia.