The month of May brought in a lot of things: rain, T-shirts, Alex Lendrum (who is spearheading our printed efforts), and lots of sandwiches.
What started as a cascade of sandwich-related memes in a group chat between MAEKAN and Rootdown—our go-to coffee and and lunch spot in HK’s Sai Ying Pun area—turned into a collaborative “inside joke” sammie. It ended up being pretty damn good. So damn good that we decided to do two different sandwiches on launch day.
To commemorate the release, we threw a launch event featuring beats by DAN DADA, our two MAEKAN x Rootdown Sandwiches, and a pocket-sized zine that we made in four days; a last-minute effort to turn our announcement flyer into something with a bit more chew to it.
Although we didn’t have a lot of time to conceptualize, produce and print the zine, we challenged ourselves to make something we would be proud of—as opposed to getting something done within our timeframe for the sake of it. It was an all-hands-on-deck moment, with conceptual brainstorming on what it was we wanted to portray with this project, design and layout exploration, and purpose outside of just fodder to accompany the flyer.
What we landed on was a homage to HK’s classic coffee shop sammies named SAAM1 MAN4 ZINE, which is Cantonese (with tones) for “sandwich.” We narrowed it down to our top eight sandwich picks, which we grabbed, shot, and wrote tongue-in-cheek “descriptions” of for each sammie that led up our collaborative sandwich with Rootdown: the Runny Rangoon, AKA the “next spiritual successor.”
The process of making this zine was just as challenging as it was rewarding. It helped us remember why we love doing what we do—telling stories—while being able to execute a project efficiently and with quality. Overall, the collaborative project with Rootdown and its launch event was well received by the community, and we aren’t sick of sandwiches yet. Thank you to everyone who made it out!
If you missed a chance at getting a copy of the SAAM1 MAN4 ZINE and would like one, DM us on Instagram and we’ll sort it out.
