Feast Artbook

ASTERISK ZINES

Feast: One Piece Food Zine is an artbook project made up of over 40 creatives from around the world (including artists, writers, graphic designers and our chef) to create a perfect bound book of 140+ pages of full coloured content and a line of designed merchandise. The project is dedicated to celebrating the many cuisines of the One Piece universe and the role of food as a symbol of celebration, friendship and multiculturalism!

Feast Volume 1, was Asterisk Zines’ first project, and set the foundation for various future endeavours. Asterisk Zines is an e-commerce business that specialises in merchandise and artbooks, co-founded in 2019 by the sisters who formed Astri Studio.

Online Store

Services:

Branding
Marketing Campaign
Social Media Management
Graphic and Motion design
Website Design
Mailing List
Storefront Set-up
Pricing Strategy
Merchandise Production
Fulfilment
Campaign Video Director
Team recruitment

Challenges

Feast Volume 1 was our very first large-scale publication. We were entering a competitive, niche market with no pre-existing audience, no product history, and a team of 50+ creatives to manage remotely across time zones.

Key obstacles included:

Zero Brand Recognition: As our debut, Asterisk Zines had no existing audience or digital footprint.

Inexperience: We had no prior experience producing artbooks, managing large creative teams, or coordinating merchandise manufacturing.

Limited Resources: We began with no pre-designed marketing materials, limited graphic design expertise, and no manufacturing contacts.

High Ambition: Our goal was to achieve over 1,000 pre-orders, an elite benchmark in the zine space.

Team Building: Without many industry connections, recruiting collaborators and convincing artists of our vision required exceptional outreach and storytelling.

Creatives - Graphic Samples

The visual style and graphics were developed in collaboration with Graphic Designer May.

Below are samples of the creative assets used throughout the campaign. These include Merchandise highlights, countdown posts, mockups and samples of the Artbook.

Solution

To launch a first-time artbook project with no prior audience and over 40 international collaborators, we focused on building credibility, community, and momentum.

The plan:

1. Lead with credibility — borrow trust before you earn it.

We onboarded well-known guest artists with large followings to boost campaign legitimacy and reach. These were creators we admired, and with huge influence in that niche. This created excitedment amongst our target audience.

2. Build real community, not just hype.

We launched interactive engagement initiatives to spark participation before the campaign even started:
A Polaroid art contest to encourage early involvement
First-50 bonus stickers to reward speed and loyalty
A “Share to Win” referral campaign that activated organic promotion

3. Close the experience gap

We involved ourselves in 20+ zine projects, learning the systems, project management and pipelines they followed. That experience shaped our workflow, recruitment process, and production pipeline.

4. Campaign Execution & Creative Content

We taught ourselves motion design and animation to create bespoke promotional graphics and a campaign video. This transformed our pitch from static previews into dynamic storytelling.
We ran a month-long social media calendar building into the pre-order launch. Every post, teaser, and behind-the-scenes update added momentum.

5. Influencer Outreach

Leverage niche influencers with mainstream reach.

We partnered with high-profile YouTubers in the anime community (like GrandLineReview and EroldStory), giving the campaign a powerful push beyond the zine niche and into broader fandom culture.

Outcomes

The campaign delivered outstanding results, surpassing all 3 of our stretch goals:

1,350+ pre-orders during launch campaign
- 7.5% store conversion rate (well above industry average)
1,000+ units sold again during a later store re-opening
- 4.1% conversion rate during the second campaign
Social Media Growth:
- Instagram: 4.1K
- Twitter: 3.9K
- Tumblr: 1K
Fulfilment and shipment of 2000+ orders in total.

Result

Feast Volume 1 was the beginning of something bigger—both for our team and our community. As our debut project, it laid the groundwork for everything Asterisk Zines would go on to build. We didn’t just launch a book; we launched a brand, a creative pipeline, and a lasting presence in the fan and zine space.

From a near-zero following to selling over 1,350 pre-orders, Feast Volume 1 proved that when vision meets strategy—and when people believe in what you’re creating—remarkable things can happen. This campaign taught us how to lead, market, and scale creative ideas while collaborating with a global team of artists and writers. It also gave us proof that there was a hungry, enthusiastic audience for the kind of work we wanted to make.

Creatives - Merch Samples

Below are samples of merchandise manufactured in collaboration with the merch artist and our manufacturers we sourced.

Conclusion

Feast Volume 1 became a foundation we were proud to stand on. It set the tone for the bold, ambitious projects we’ve continued to deliver—always grounded in community, creativity, and craft.