F%D Creative Studio stands between food and design. We are a studio of two. We invite designers and makers to cook with a group of participants at one long table: a meal that is mostly vegetables, wastes little and uses what it has. We think that cooking and eating together is one way people come closer again.
The mark reads F%D as food: the two rings of the per-cent sign are the two o’s, F and D stand for food and design, and the stroke between the rings joins them.
Year
2025, May and July
My role
Planning, organising and cooking; the design of each workshop with its guest; every photograph
Team
Two, me and an artist friend. Guests: BayBowl design studio (May), the type designer 五一 (July)
Where
NICE COMMUNE 好公社, the NICE2035 shared kitchen, 1024 Siping Road, Yangpu, Shanghai
Status
Two workshops held, 24 May and 20 July 2025
Vegetables firstMostly vegetables, little waste, and what we have used again.
A guest each timeEach workshop is designed with a designer or maker from outside the kitchen.
One long tableFourteen people side by side at one table, not each at their own station.
Fourteen seats, one long tableEach workshop had fourteen people. A dot is a person; a dotted line is two of them coming closer.
Workshop 01 · 24 May 2025
Spring–Summer Food Workshop春夏食物工坊
Gua bao, the folded steamed bun, taken apart into steps anyone can do with their hands, and a hand-made cola to drink with it. The fillings were mostly vegetables: each participant brought one vegetable ingredient, and the fillings were put together from what arrived. Designed with BayBowl, a design studio; fourteen people came, two more than the poster allowed.
The poster: spring and summer in bamboo shoot, mushroom, onion, fern and peas, white on greenThe bun, in paper: shredded greens, chilli sauce, a leaf of shiso on top.
Workshop 01
Spring–Summer Food Workshop春夏食物工坊
Date
24 May 2025, from about 15:00
Seats
14
Fee
¥88
Guest
BayBowl design studio 湾池设计工作室
Place
NICE COMMUNE 好公社, 1024 Siping Road, Yangpu, Shanghai
Menu
Gua bao 刈包 with what everyone brought · a hand-made cola
F%D Creative StudioEat Closer
Step 01Setting the tableSpice jars labelled by hand: cardamom, pink pepper, black pepper, cinnamon, lime leaf. A card on the counter says food, don’t waste it.
Step 02The colaSyrup through a sieve into ice and lime, weighed on a scale, poured into paper cups to taste.
Step 03KneadingMixed and kneaded by hand on the boards; a paper cup reads sugar, 30 g.
Step 04ShapingRolled into balls, rolled flat, brushed with oil, folded over.
Step 05SteamingInto bamboo steamers lined with cloth, and out again.
Step 06FillingOpened and filled with what people brought: greens, chilli sauce, shiso.
The shared kitchen from one end: a long steel counter, the participants along both sidesThe start, from behind the group: everyone along the tableThe counter during the work, the food card in frontA board of folded buns passed to the steamer, from the video
Workshop 02 · 20 July 2025
Pasta as Typeface把意面作为字体
The other way round: the ingredient itself as the material for letters. Fourteen people made pasta dough by hand, rolled and cut it, shaped it into the letters A to Z and photographed each one; the letters were then traced into a typeface you can type with. Designed with the type designer 五一.
Twenty-six letters in pasta, and the glyphs traced from them.The poster: a hand-drawn pasta machine pressing a square of dough, red handwriting on pale blue
Workshop 02
Pasta as Typeface把意面作为字体
Date
20 July 2025, 14:00–17:00
Seats
14
Fee
¥68, all ingredients and teaching included
Guest
Type designer 五一
Place
NICE COMMUNE 好公社, 1024 Siping Road, Yangpu, Shanghai
Made
Fresh pasta in three cuts · a typeface, A to Z
F%D Creative StudioEat Closer
Step 01The wellA mound of flour, yolks in the middle, worked into crumbs with the fingers.
Step 02Many handsOne dough, kneaded by five pairs of hands.
Step 03RestingWrapped in film and left to rest.
Step 04Rolling and cuttingThrough the pasta machine: sheets first, then strands.
Step 05LettersSheets cut and strands bent into letters on the boards.
Step 06A typefaceEach letter photographed and traced. On the laptop, the alphabet types PASTA SUMMER.
The kitchen with the pasta machine at the left and the group along the counterA row of cups for the sauces and toppingsFresh pasta in three cutsAround the laptop, watching the letters become a typeface
Nine seconds from making the typeface: the letters as glyphs in Illustrator’s OpenType panel.
Place and partners
Both workshops were held at NICE COMMUNE 好公社, 1024 Siping Road, Yangpu, Shanghai, in its NICE2035 shared kitchen, near Tongji. The kitchen is part of NICE 2035, a project of Tongji University’s College of Design and Innovation; F%D is a separate studio that used the room.
The May workshop was designed with BayBowl 湾池设计工作室, a design studio; the July one with the type designer 五一. Participants, guests and the venue agreed to appear on this page.
F%D Creative StudioEat Closer
What this record can't say
No feedback was collected from the participants, and nothing beyond the food and the typeface is on record as a result.
Who shaped which letter, or who brought which ingredient, was not recorded.
The typeface exists as a working file; this page shows it only in photographs.
The May workshop ran past the 17:00 on its poster; the photographs are not timed here and no end time is claimed.
Consent to appear here, from participants, guests and the venue, was given in person, not in writing.
Details
Title
F%D Creative Studio. Two food workshops, fourteen people each, at one long table.
Medium
Two workshops, their posters, a typeface made from pasta, and the studio’s own identity
Count
14 people each time · ¥88 and ¥68 a seat
Skills
Event design · co-design with guests · cooking · photography
Photographs: F%D / Feng Kaiqi (a Sony ZV-1 and a Nikon Z5 in May, a phone in July); the May video stills are kept small. Posters: made for each workshop with its guest. Dates, times and fees are the posters’; the two counts of fourteen are my record. The identity on this page (the mark, the dots and lines, the motion) is the studio’s own system, version 0.3.
Step 01Setting the tableSpice jars labelled by hand: cardamom, pink pepper, black pepper, cinnamon, lime leaf. A card on the counter says food, don’t waste it.
Step 02The colaSyrup through a sieve into ice and lime, weighed on a scale, poured into paper cups to taste.
Step 03KneadingMixed and kneaded by hand on the boards; a paper cup reads sugar, 30 g.
Step 04ShapingRolled into balls, rolled flat, brushed with oil, folded over.
Step 05SteamingInto bamboo steamers lined with cloth, and out again.
Step 06FillingOpened and filled with what people brought: greens, chilli sauce, shiso.
Step 01The wellA mound of flour, yolks in the middle, worked into crumbs with the fingers.
Step 02Many handsOne dough, kneaded by five pairs of hands.
Step 03RestingWrapped in film and left to rest.
Step 04Rolling and cuttingThrough the pasta machine: sheets first, then strands.
Step 05LettersSheets cut and strands bent into letters on the boards.
Step 06A typefaceEach letter photographed and traced. On the laptop, the alphabet types PASTA SUMMER.
