Independent drinks brand Heaps Normal has unveiled The Normal Index, a limited-edition print zine exploring what “normal” means in 2025, from ‘dumb’ phones and nicotine nostalgia, to the rebirth of physical media culture.
Edited by writer-musician Frank Sweet, the publication brings together essays, interviews and cultural hot-takes from influential voices across music, food, and hospitality.
The free zine will be available to pick up from next week at culturally influential venues, pubs, bottle shops and bars around Australia, including Sydney’s Ace Hotel and Melbourne’s Hope St. Radio.
The zine features interviews and commentary from a diverse cast of cultural contributors including Nat Thaipun (chef and MasterChef Australia winner), Michael Sun (The Guardian), Claire Adey (Into It), Leanne Chance (The Tote & Last Chance Rock ’n’ Roll Bar), Eugene Healey (brand strategist), Simon Finck (This Song is Yours podcast), Edmond Lau (cultural strategist) and Rachelle “Rocky” Hair (Sorry Not Sorry Collective).
Sweet – drummer in These New South Whales, co-editor of The Age’s Good Food Guide for 2026, and self-described ‘card-carrying captain of the normies’ – said The Normal Index is “a real-life, flippable newspaper full of cultural insights littered with the ramblings of a “normal” guy resisting the urge to draw those cool scribble tornadoes everywhere.”
“This is a time capsule of how we’re living, consuming and connecting right now. It’s part tongue-in-cheek experiment, part serious artefact of Aussie culture in 2025, and 100% unhinged in the best possible way,” said Sweet.
“You will discover what is normal, what is not, what should be and what shouldn’t be. You will read it cover to cover and be rigorously quizzed thereafter. Pass, and you will ascend to the fifth level of consciousness, where you’ll be issued with 1x complimentary welcome drink (probably not a Martini, according to the data) and personally greeted by the founding cast of The Project, who’ve been sentenced to an eternity of indentured servitude for crimes of normality and collusion with Peter Helliar.”
At the heart of The Normal Index is a ‘map’ of cultural norms in Australia right now – a guide to trends both emerging and established in the worlds of hospitality, music and the arts, informed via a rigorous survey of over 100+ tastemakers working in these fields today. These tastemakers were given a list of 40 trends and asked two simple questions: what’s normal? What should be?
The Normal Index takes that data and charts the cultural contradictions shaping life in 2025: from a society being burnt out to one desperate for something tangible to hold onto, from the resurgence of vinyl and zines to the collective yearning for real-world connection, slower nights, and damp drinking over blackout culture.
At the same time, the Index captures a moment of creative chaos: food trends pushed to absurd extremes, live music in crisis but still magical, and a generation of creators finding community in smaller, stranger spaces. From croissants gone feral to the cult of hot honey, from $24 sandwiches to the quiet revolt against the algorithm, the message is clear: normal is fracturing, and that might just be the best thing happening.
Index cover star Nat Thaipun says she was eager to be part of the project to interrogate the norms shaping hospitality in Australia right now.
“We’re living and working through a totally chaotic, exciting, batshit crazy time in food right now: between the multitude of food trends, pressure on hospitality workers, rising cost of living and general disconnection happening between our media diets and our actual diets – it’s a wild time to be working or engaging in the hospitality industry. I am super passionate about the role of food in shaping our sense of culture, belonging and community and am pumped we’re getting closer to recognising this more broadly in society. Projects like this are definitely part of that process, I’m really proud to have been part of it,” said Thaipun.
Heaps Normal’s CEO and co-founder, Andy Miller, said the project is a unique creative analysis of Australian culture right now.
“When we launched five years ago, we sensed an opportunity to change Aussie drinking culture. As time has passed, that’s grown into a genuine curiosity about the adjacent sub-cultures we play in—like food and music— and the ‘norms’ that define them. We created the Normal Index to bring together friends that inspire us and give a platform to the most our most valuable social currency today – taste. It’s been fun,” said Miller.
The design of The Normal Index, led by Mirte van der Lugt at M.CO.Studio with contributions from Heaps Normal’s in-house design team, takes its cues from a diverse array of referential cues: 80s British fashion magazines, tabloid newspapers and 90s shopping catalogues – all joining forces in a deliberately disjointed, chaotic visual design.
“This project is what we mean when we say we’re a cultural brand,” said Heaps Normal’s chief brand officer Tim Snape. “It’s a pretty big swing at better understanding Aussie culture right now
and we’re super excited to see it on countertops around the country.”
Heaps Normal is partnering with select distribution partners around Australia to release The Normal Index.
