Club Rambutan Origins (and other ramblings)
If you’ve been following us for a while now, you might’ve already guessed that Club Rambutan is an organization founded on vibes.
Some of the SF & PHX team meeting up in Oakland (June 2025)
Well, clearly it's not just that, but ask any of our 21 team members and you’ll come to understand how essential it is to our dynamic. For the most part, our work is play. But like, strategized play - think UNO with the blank wild cards that you can write ridiculous rules in that might not always make sense, but everyone trusts the process and it ends up being really fun.
In all honesty, CR exists today all thanks to a crucial vibe check and a little alcohol. Our origin story rings true to how we continue to market ourselves today: always humorously, somewhat spontaneously, and without a doubt authentically.
Fun fact: the foundation of CR was actually laid out nearly one full year before the literal idea formulated in my brain. Unbeknownst to me, it all began on the last day of 2022. I was about to spend my last New Year’s Eve ever in Phoenix, because I had abruptly decided to pack up and get on a one-way flight to Oakland at the turn of the new year. I had come to the intrinsic realization that my chapter in the desert was coming to a close, and that it was time for me to go - so I did exactly that.
Jasmin and I at the Issue #1 launch party @ Monsoon Marketplace, PHX! (December 2023)
But that’s not to say it was an easy move, of course. I only had half a plan ready for my new life, which mostly relied on two girls whom I barely knew from Bumble BFF from when I interned in San Francisco earlier that summer. I had never done something this risky before in my life. I was consumed by stressful thoughts of my imminent future as I drove up to my friend (and later Cohort 1 artist alum!) Angelina’s house party. It was there that I met Jasmin Lily, Club Rambutan’s Creative Director.
But our first encounter was anything but insightful or inspiring - it was a NYE party after all, and everyone was downright inebriated. I only got in close proximity to Jasmin because I made out with her friend (hi Divya) as the clock struck 12, then we promptly got into somebody’s car in search of some food. From what I can recall, Jasmin and I were the only ones who adamantly voted for Jack in the Box, and despite everyone’s apprehension, she and I knew we were on the same wavelength. Who knew that a drunken agreement on fast food would prove to be the basis of trust for a future business partnership?
Bonding at Ocean Beach during SF Design Week (we may or may not have lit a few cigs on a stick here).
Immediately after that night, I added Jasmin to my Close Friend’s story on Instagram (in classic drunk girl fashion, of course). 8 months flew by and we didn’t talk again - until the day she messaged me after reading the pitch deck I had wrote and privately posted for the initial concept of Club Rambutan.
By this time, that same feeling I had when I decided to move away from home earlier that year had returned overnight, but tenfold; it was a decision that I could not circumvent.
I had reached a point of intense restlessness that I felt like choosing to remain stagnant could kill me. I suddenly lost all patience for myself because I could no longer cater to my insecurities.
For the first time in my life, I trusted myself to create something for myself from scratch rather than following a path that I was never certain was meant for me. I didn’t really care whether i knew what I was doing or not; Something new had to happen and i was going to own this change.
Jasmin and I hit the ground running and we haven’t stopped sprinting since. It used to be just the two of us, long nights learning InDesign on the fly to make our first zine in December 2023, and now we have a crew of incredible graphic designers, writers, and event planners who get to infuse their own ideas and voice into what we create here at CR. We’re still growing and learning, but to say I’m grateful is an understatement.
Yes, Club Rambutan is what it says it is: a magazine, a residency, and an artist collective. But if you ask me specifically, it will first and foremost be a younger me’s dream. This collective’s three values - skill sharing, standing for something outside of the individual, and finding inspiration in others - are mindsets that I had once lacked the confidence to embody. To me, the creation of CR was the gateway for me to grow into the woman that I always wanted to be. It has always been a world just waiting to be built.
