Check Out Stacy Yong Zou’s Story

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Stacy Yong Zou. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Stacy below.

Hi Stacy Yong, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was born in Los Angeles to Cantonese parents who immigrated here in the late 80s–early 90s. I grew up across the San Gabriel Valley, studied Graphic Design at Art Center in Pasadena, and have lived in central LA for almost a decade. I’m also a docent at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House when I have the time, so LA has always been woven into my life in a myriad of ways.

My parents were frugal but avid travelers, so from a young age I grew up with the rhythm of going out into the world, immersing myself in other places, and then coming home. That gave me early insight into how people elsewhere live, what they cherish, the pace of their days, and the ways they root themselves. It shaped how I understand home – not as a fixed place, but as something that expands through experiences you carry. And it just so happens that my grounding base is LA, a city that has always celebrated experimentation and difference, where old and new ideas, tastes, and cultures overlap.

For the past ten years I’ve worked as a Designer and Creative Director across food and beverage, hospitality, architecture, and early-stage startups, shaping how brands find their voice and give it form in the world. Through my creative practice, EXTRA SMALL (www.extrasmall.world), I focus on the strategic, narrative, and creative aspects of brand identity: developing visual systems, guiding larger campaigns and collaborations, and leading the teams that bring them to life.

Now I’m shifting into a new chapter with my project CASASYZ. It’s a hidden sanctuary and concept space that reimagines retail through ritual, memory, and intentional commerce. It lives inside a LA apartment, tucked into a pocket of in-between neighborhoods. Just as the area itself exists at the edges of boundaries, CASASYZ blurs the lines between shop, gallery, community space, and place to live.

Living in a time that feels increasingly unsettling and fractured, I’ve come to see CASASYZ as a way to hold onto what really matters: slowing down, spending time with each other, and remembering that care and connection are not luxuries but practices we can choose. Commerce doesn’t have to be instant or transactional… it can be reciprocal, where time is spent, not just money. Care is the currency.

The project is still very much a work in progress (and probably always will be). I’m currently in a soft-launch phase, opening the space slowly through one-on-one visits and intimate workshops, with early offerings hosting guest artists and collaborators who teach the community new crafts and skills, from experimental image-making to paper making from food waste. Early workshops are beginning to take shape, with the first open month rooted in an initial theme of decay and rebirth as winter gives way to spring. I’m excited to begin here, and curious to see how the programming will continue to evolve as the space finds its rhythm.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
At this beginning stage, the hardest part has been surrendering to the unknown. CASASYZ keeps teaching me that I don’t need to figure everything out in advance. It will evolve as people respond to the invitation, step into the space, and contribute their ideas. My work right now is to stay steady and keep moving, building one step at a time.

There’s also the financial reality. CASASYZ isn’t designed to be fast or convenient in the way we’re all programmed to expect. The world is oriented toward instant delivery and endless consumption, but this space asks the opposite: to slow down, plan a visit, maybe sit for tea and accidentally stay until the sun sets. I trust that it will draw the right people, the ones who value curiosity, time, and connection.

And then there’s the paradox of building something meant to feel like a hidden gem. You want people to stumble upon it and feel like they’ve discovered something secret, but you also need to share it enough so people know it exists. For me, the answer is to keep it ever-changing: a space where what you encounter depends on the season, my recent influences, and the collaborations in motion. It will never be the same experience twice.

Like anyone starting something new, I’ve had to face the natural doubts: Will people come? Can I sustain this? I run up against limits of energy, resources, and perfectionism. But even that fragility feels like part of the process, keeping me close to the heart of why I’m creating it in the first place.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My career has moved across very different creative worlds, from nimble, cult-following brands like Fly By Jing celebrating flavors from a hometown, to start-ups turned large organizations like Compass – literally about finding a home, neighborhood nuance, and hyperlocal architecture. I’ve always been something of a chameleon in that way. It’s less about the industry or style and more about the thread that runs through them.

I’m drawn to the formative stages when identities are still being shaped and nothing is fully defined. That’s when people seek me out. There’s a puzzle to figure out, whether it’s a new local business defining its niche or a long-standing company finding its voice after a growth milestone. I help clarify who they are, what they stand for, why anyone should care, and who else to bring in to knock it out of the park. They trust me to be their co-pilot as we land in unfamiliar territory. It’s intimate work that requires trust to get right.

I’m grateful for the experience of fast-paced environments, responsibility, trust, and building out big visions, but those years ultimately clarified what I was seeking for myself: slower, more intimate work rooted in care, craft, storytelling, and human connection.

At the core of my work is storytelling. I’m driven by paradoxes, language, and the process itself, often beginning from a small detail observed or my own sensibility of the world, then translating that into something visual that makes people pause, draw their own meaning, and see with fresh eyes.

I’ve always believed that good design teaches us to pay attention and celebrate the minutiae of daily life. Creativity, to me, has the power to turn even the mundane into a point of connection. My process is less about imposing a style and more about building narratives with collaborators, balancing structure with the openness needed for something unexpected to emerge.

CASASYZ extends that philosophy. It’s not about perfect curation but about creating a lived-in space where objects carry memory and change over time. People don’t just come to look. They come to be in, and with it.

Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
Some of my favorite memories are of my parents’ backyard, where wild, unkempt fruit trees circled the swimming pool: persimmons, loquats, citrus, guava, jujubes. They made me sensitive to the changing seasons, what brought an abundant harvest, and the natural shifts that meant smaller ones. My dad is a landscape designer, so the union of water and greenery was always the backdrop of my life. The sound of waterfalls, the shimmer of the pool, the blue sky meeting green trees. That mix has always felt integral to my peace. Together, the water and the garden taught me about cycles, care, and what it means to root and replenish.

Those rhythms of season and place were my first encounters with the idea that everyday life could carry ceremony. Oils, herbs, recipes, incense, prayer, and proverbs were woven into daily life through Traditional Chinese Medicine, feng shui, and the stories that unfolded around our dinner table. They were reminders that the ordinary could hold power. That’s where the seed was planted for me to see design and curation as forms of arranging and offering.

In many ways, CASASYZ grows out of those memories. It is a living space where the everyday is re-seen as sacred and objects become provisions for ritual. Seasonal soaps, family-recipe teas and medicinal bitters, cherry pit healing pillows, quilts from India, ceramics and lighting by LA makers, storied furniture, even bug repellent in a bottle worthy of keeping. Each offering is chosen with care to hold history, presence, and purpose.

Being rooted in Los Angeles, I have always moved between worlds: wild and domestic, ancestral and modern, personal and collective. I sometimes think of myself less as a designer and more as a Sourceress. Not someone who only casts spells, but someone who gathers the ingredients, objects, and people that make them possible.

And yes, I was also a witch every year for Halloween 🙂

Contact Info:

• Website: https://WWW.CASASYZ.HOUSE
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/c.a.s.a.s.y.z/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacyzou/
• Other: https://WWW.EXTRASMALL.WORLD

Image Credits
Fly By Jing Chengdu Crunch photo:
In collaboration with Haruko Hayakawa