B. A. Visual Communication Final Major Project Process Book Laura Kazmeier Feb - May 2021
Old & New 1
Old & New A documentation of my last months on the B.A. Visual Communication degree, working on my final major project.
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Introduction & Starting Initial Research & Experimentation Archiving & Art Book Route The Final Route & Development Final Outcomes Evaluation & References
Research: Food Illustration
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Introduction & Starting Point
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For my final project, I was interested in working within editorial, illustration and typography. The starting point and basis for my project were two recipe books passed down from my German grandmother and great grandmother as well as some photos of my Grandmother’s kitchenware. Since being away from home, I have come to cherish German food all the more and was interested in creating a personal project celebrating these beautiful books and my culture. Part of my initial research consisted of simply taking a closer look at these books and the many leaflets within.
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Research: Food Illustration
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Initial Research & Experimentation
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Research: Editorial
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Craig Oldham Left: In Loving Memory of Work Right: The Handwritten Letter Project Craig Oldham’s editorial work was inspiring in terms of his use of colour and text to evoke a certain time, his display of external/archival material (letters, signs etc.) and his attention to detail and materiality.
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Research: Food Editorial & Illustration
Initial research into food illustration and food related editorial projects were very inspiring in terms of colour. They inspired me to consider celebrating/showcasing German customs or celebrations and using food illustration rather than photography in my book. I was tempted not to use photography as well because the books I was working with contained none or very few.
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A taste of the World by Beth Walrond - a book about food customs around the world.
Food illustrations by Marisol Ortega
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Research: Food Editorial & Illustration
Smulpapen branding, book and menu design by Mara Vissers and Wieneke Claxton
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The Folio Society: An Omelette and a glass of Wine by Elizabeth David (left) and The Folio Book of Food and Drink - beautifully crafted and illustrated books.
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Research: Cookbooks
Current Cookbook Trends • Making it personal! Addition of stories & lifestyle content, the author’s voice coming through is becoming increasingly important. • Veganism, sustainability, meat alternatives • Specialised, niche cuisines e.g. Cyprus, Afghanistan, Korea • Simple, easy recipes, few ingredients
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Research: Cookbooks
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Primary Research
Survey on cooking/baking habits A survey with 40 largely 18-25 year old students gave some interesting information on cooking habits and showed a very one-sided view of German cuisine. The responses made me interested in showcasing a different side of German cuisine one that was not dominated by meat and beer and maybe even vegan. • Almost 50% (young people) mainly use cookbooks or baking books to find recipes! • Thoughts on German Cuisine: largely meat, sausages, beer, warm and hearty meals. Some baked goods, Christmas related. • Opinion of German food is largely positive and curious.
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Selected responses to: What comes to mind when you think of German cuisine? 24
Type Research
Type Tells Tales This book was a great source of inspiration in terms of its design and projects it showcased. It led me to continue exploring the idea of passing things down through type and influenced some of my later development when working on hand-lettering.
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Postcards to my Parents by Carolyn Sewell - a collection of hand-lettered cards sent every day for a year.
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Research: Food Illustration
Left: Stretch Marks by Warren Lehrer Right: A made up true story by Sam Winston
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Initial Experimentation
Collage & Image-making I started trying to make these artefacts feel more contemporary and explored the idea of passing things down by showcasing the same recipe from different books, as well as adding in my grandmother’s kitchenware. Some useful feedback at this point was not to edit or obstruct the scans too much.
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Initial Experimentation
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Initial Experimentation
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Initial Experimentation
“In my South, the most treasured things passed down from generation to generation are the family recipes.” - Robert St. John
“Anyone may have diamonds: an heirloom is an ornament of quite a different kind.” - Elizabeth Aston
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Research: Food Illustration
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Archiving & Art Book Route
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Research: Food Illustration
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A useful detour Though, in hindsight this part of my project may seem like a bit of a detour, it did give me a much better understanding of the books, which parts I wanted to highlight and how to best present them. Namely, unobstructed in an almost archival manner. This development was also necessary to show me that this was not the route I wanted to go down, and allowed me to have all the scans I would later use within the book - a time consuming process!
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Research: Archiving
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Tate Britain archive gallery and digitised archive items
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Research
Don’t believe the Papers by Mireille Fauchon. Presenting and working over the top of archival material, suggesting meaning through illustration/type.
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Pomegranates and Froot Loops by Danielle Clough I was very inspired by Danielle Clough’s vibrant and contemporary stitch work. I felt contemporary stitching could be a great way of combining old and new.
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Archiving Process
My research compelled me to scan what I felt were the most interesting pages/leaflets of the two books. I was then encouraged to scan all pages so that I could create complete digital archives of the books - a time-consuming but rewarding process!
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Archiving Process
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Archiving Process
Final archives on issuu
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Working with the Scans
Illustration and stitch Working over the top of scans, I looked for interesting material I could pull out and brought in elements of my grandmother’s kitchen. I began to think about how I could showcase pages and looked to combine those with the same recipes from different sources, suggesting the idea of passing down.
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Research: Food Illustration
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Research: Food Illustration
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Research & Experimentation: Marginalia
The Ghost in the Fog: XXV The Corrections by Barrie Tullett & Philippa Wood shows only the marginal comments and edits made to a book of poems.
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Annotations Experiment The idea of marginalia inspired me to compile all annotations my grandmother and great grandmother made in the recipe books. I loved how these could give a little insight into who they were. Initially, I thought of presenting these in a small booklet, letter-pressed, but I was still able to include a lot of these annotations and family traditions in my final book.
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Spread Trials
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Changing D ire ct io n At this point my idea was moving more in an art book direction, showcasing the books and giving more context - historical, and personal. However, I was interested in creating something more practical with a clear audience, something that could fill a gap in the market. As there was so much to explore within these books I wanted to delve deep into every aspect, however, I needed to focus on a clear direction.
I decided to focus on what currently constituted the last part of the book - vegan versions of the passed down recipes. In this way I could put a contemporary spin on these books. I could still incorporate some context and history within a cookbook by telling my own stories, and this would also match current cookbook trends.
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Research: Food Illustration
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Final Route & Development
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Research - trend towards veganism
Final Decisions on Content - Why Vegan? Veganising these old recipes would be a great way of putting a contemporary spin on these books and was in line with my own diet. Research had also suggested an entirely vegan cookbook would find a large audience and followed current cookbook trends. In accordance with the idea of ‘veganising’ recipes, I devised the theme ‘taking the old and making it new’ to underpin my book. This helped me with decisions down the line and kept my book consistent. In narrowing down my recipe selection, I chose those that felt most important to me and/or which were very traditional to Bavaria. I still focussed on already nonmeat dishes as I wanted to show a lesser-known side of German cuisine.
Taking the old and making it new. 65
Particularly the UK and Germany have seen a huge surge in veganism over the last couple of years, suggesting a large potential audience for my book.
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Research - trend towards veganism
Hardie Grant Books A selection of publications from the last two years from Hardie Grant suggests a huge demand for vegan cookbooks - they span food from different cuisines, quick meals, baking, drinks and more.
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Framing my Concept
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The Project:
Following the theme of taking the old and making it new, my project will constitute a book of ‘veganised’ recipes which have been passed down in my family. It aims to reflect societal changes in eating habits and show a different and unknown side of German cuisine, while being a celebration of German culture and the beautiful act of passing things down.
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Initial Learning Agreement
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Revised Learning Agreement
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Key Research
Opt Art - Culinary Magazine These magazines showcasing gourmet restaurants around the world were very inspiring in their bold use of colour, combination of food and art, and the inclusion of hand-written recipes, beautifully and entirely showcased.
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Key Cookbook Research
Beyond the North Wind - Russia in Recipes and Lore by Darra Goldstein (left) Parwana - Recipes and Stories from an Afghan Kitchen (right) Reading a wide range of cookbooks and online recipes was useful to me when translating and writing out my recipes. These cookbooks were particularly inspiring, as they had a strong personal element, with the inclusion of stories and personal photos. They are also both from different cuisines around the world and I like how they included the original name of the dish.
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Key Cookbook Research
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Heart & Parcel by Minute Works Minute Works’ sustainable approach to all projects was a real inspiration. In Heart & Parcel, I loved the addition of context/stories from each of these women and the use of colour and pattern to help the audience navigate through the book.
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Key Cookbook Research
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Cook This Book by Molly Baz, Design by Violaine et Jeremy A bright colour palette, playful approach and strong typefaces make this cookbook unique and very contemporary.
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Grid/Type Research
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Grid Systems by Josef Müller Brockmann & Making and Breaking the Grid by Timothy Sarah These were valuable resources before I devised a grid for my book. They were a good recap of typographic elements such as leading and gave several examples of grids in use in publications.
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Writing out and testing recipes
One of many many pages...
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Research: Food Illustration
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Research: Food Illustration
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Categories
Initially, I planned to allow German sayings/proverbs to lead how the book is divided. I compiled a long list of proverbs relating to food and came up with categories they could stand for. However, this method turned out to be too confusing considering the audience was 89
english-speaking. I ended up deciding to just keep the proverbs/sayings within the chapters - see next few pages for development. In the process I also began experimenting with possible imagery and colour for the chapter title pages.
Final categories
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Initial Spread Development
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Initial Spread Development
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Initial Spread Development
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After deciding not to have the sayings on the chapter title page I started adding them in alongside the recipes.
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Flatplan
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Visual System/Style
Inspired by traditional Bavarian cookbooks and my Grandmother’s kitchenware I chose a strong blue as a basis for the book. I wanted my book to almost appear like a normal traditional Bavarian cookbook, which then turns out to be vegan.
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Title Idea & Cover Trials
‘The Good German Kitchen’ is a phrase commonly used in Germany to describe German cuisine and also the name of many traditional German, meat-heavy cookbooks. I wanted to use this to show that traditional German food can be different to what most people expect. By emphasizing the ‘Good’ I also wanted to allude to the ethical underpinnings of veganism.
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Die Gute Deutsche Küche = The Good German Kitchen
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Title Idea & Cover Trials
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Initial cover designs: experimenting with ways of emphasizing the word ‘good.’
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Type Considerations
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Type Trials
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Type Trials
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After considering the modern font ‘Bely,’ which I felt has some similarities to some of the fonts in the books, I decided to instead use a black-letter font. Research showed that with contemporary setting and colours, this could have a very modern look. Using a black-letter
font in this way also perfectly followed my theme of taking the old and making it new. I still used certain weights of ‘Bely’ within the book as I felt it had a nice sense of tradition and warmth while feeling modern.
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Research - Modern Blackletter
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Type Trials & Chapter Title Page Development
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Chapter Title Page Development
After initial trials with the font Blonde Fraktur, I switched to Cabazon (seen on this page), a black-letter font, which felt slightly more fun and friendly. With this one, I didn’t feel I necessarily needed to keep it lower case.
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Development of Imagery
Imagery: Halftoned Photos of Grandma’s Kitchenware
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Chapter Title Page Development
I felt with layering, a printerly aesthetic and scale the black-letter font could be made to look much more modern.
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Chapter Title Page Development
Decided to keep colours more muted, warm and friendly. 121
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Development of Spreads
At this point I put all content into InDesign and started working on layout, using the grid shown to the right. I chose to add in the original German name of the dish and bring in the chapter colours in these titles to aid the viewer in navigation.
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Development of Spreads
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Development of Imagery
Imagery: Monotoned Scans Switched to monotone, not half-tone and monotone editing for the scans, as this made them more legible. Also cropped more of the scans so that I could show entire pages rather than cutting off words like above.
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Development of Imagery
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Chapter Title Page Development
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Final Chapter Title Pages
Final Colour Palette
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Final Chapter Title Pages
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Hand-lettering Development
Imagery: Hand-lettered Sayings and Proverbs I had thought early on in the process of including proverbs and sayings in my final piece as a way of celebrating German culture and showcasing something else that is passed down. My family uses proverbs a lot and I love how very unique proverbs exist in different languages. I was interested in hand-lettering these sayings digitally early on, but experimented with other options at first (see initial spread development)
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Hand-lettering - First Digital Trial
Work & tutorial by Gia Graham
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My first digital hand-lettering trial following Gia Graham’s skill-share tutorials. 140
Hand-lettering Development
Digital hand-lettering always requires a sketch first, I tried to loosen up and get creative by working with watercolour.
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Hand-lettering Development
Experimenting with adding more colour. I decided I wanted to stick with just blue.
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Trials for digitising sayings using Plotterfun.
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Hand-lettering Development
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Hand-lettering Development
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Final Outcomes: Hand-lettering
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Incorporating Hand-Lettering - Inserts?
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After speaking to Joseph I decided against inserts, as I couldn’t have these how I wanted them and also have my book lay flat - a priority for a cookbook in my eyes. 152
Incorporating Hand-lettering - Trials in Spreads
Trialling options for adding sayings/proverbs to spreads
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Incorporating Hand-lettering - Final Choice
Final way of including hand-lettering, with more subtle English translation and explanation in smaller font underneath.
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Final Colour Development
I trialled adding in more colour as well as some imagery to add warmth to the book. These colours were based on the dishes themselves. However, after some feedback in the next tutorial and considering this more myself, I decided this was too confusing and would result in too many colours and lacking coherence overall.
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Final Colour Development
I chose instead to try using a tint of the main chapter colour, as I had used on the left page of each chapter title page as backgrounds within the chapters. I was really happy with this and added coloured backgrounds in throughout. Further final development of the spreads involved making sure the scans were displayed nicely and in varied ways to create more interest, and making sure the book felt coherent and everything was legible.
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Final Spread Development
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Final Spread Development
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Final Spread Development
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Development: Sauces & Preserves Chapter
Adding a separate sauces and preserves chapter rather than featuring these recipes within Warm & Sweet was a late decision made for coherence and easier navigation
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Development: Contents Page
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Development: Introduction Pages
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Development: Introduction Pages
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Cover Development
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Cover Development
Trialling different placement of and degrees of halftoning the image. Ensuring the cover feels more in line with the rest of the book overall. 177
Final Cover
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Binding Method and Test
Research into various editorial projects and help from Joseph helped me to identify my desired binding method. I wanted the book to lay flat and was interested in an open bind, where the visible stitching would suggest how I’ve brought together these recipes from different books and relatives to create something new. A binding test using kettle stitch solidified my choice to use this method.
Inspiration: Salto Youth Book by Vincent Moisan: swiss binding with open bind
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Paper Choice
A sustainable option inspired by Heart & Parcel by Minute Works (p. 77) It perfectly echoed my theme of taking the old (coffee cups) and making it new (paper) and was exactly what I wanted in terms of feel and gsm.
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Test Print!
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Recipe Cards
I chose to add recipe cards with my hand-lettering as an additional fun element to the book. I felt they would be a great way of spreading the joy of coking/baking and getting people to give vegan recipes a try. After designing the cards, I worked on making an envelope to hold them in the back of the book.
Examples of recipe cards & figuring out dimensions using my binding test made of test prints.
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Examples of final recipe card designs 186
Recipe Card Envelope
Envelope in a notebook of mine used as a reference. First trial making my own
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Final Binding!
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Research: Food Illustration
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Final Outcome
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Evaluation Overall, this unit was an incredible learning experience for me and I am very happy with the final outcome. I feel I have been able to improve my skills in editorial and hand-lettering massively and have succeeded in creating something that meets a demand, is meaningful to me and my family, and honours my ancestors. Apart from making process books in the past, where the binding method was clear, this entire process of making such a long book with this amount of content was new to me. While it might have been smarter to do something I was more practiced in, we have always been told to use the facilities and experiment as much as possible whilst still in the safety of university, and this is what I aimed to do. I’m very happy that I decided to make a printed piece and finally make use of the bindery again, as it is such a rewarding feeling to have a physical final piece and I really enjoyed the process.
I feel the theme I devised for my book - taking the old and making it new - was successfully reflected in many areas of the book. From the content, to the manipulation of old imagery, to the way I’ve set the black-letter font and the colours I’ve used, and finally in the materiality of the book. I also feel I have successfully created a celebration of my culture and of the idea of passing things down through the hand-lettered elements, addition of my own stories and context as well as the way I have treated and showcased the scans. I’m proud of myself for challenging myself as much as I did with this project. I’ve definitely never undertaken a project of this size, with this amount of content - both written and imagery. And I’m proud for managing it all during the current circumstances!
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References Angelou, A., (2021). Violaine et Jérémy returns with a cookbook for Molly Baz, featuring three of the studio’s much-loved typefaces. [online] Itsnicethat.com. Available at: <https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/violaineet-jeremy-molly-baz-cook-this-book-graphic-design-170521> [Accessed 29 May 2021]. Baines, P. (2005). Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005, London: Penguin Behance. (2014). Smulpapen. [online] Available from: <https://www.behance.net/gallery/14171651/ Smulpapen> [Accessed 8 March 2021]. Carolyn Sewell. (2010). Postcards To My Parents - Carolyn Sewell. [online] Available from: <https:// carolynsewell.com/Postcards-To-My-Parents> [Accessed 29 May 2021]. Danielle Clough. (2021). Danielle Clough. [online] Available from: <https://danielleclough.com/> [Accessed 8 March 2021]. Fakepaper. (2021). Fakepaper. [online] Available from: <https://fakepaper.fr> [Accessed 8 March 2021]. Fauchon, M., 2021. Don’t Believe The Papers. [online] Padlet. Available at: <https://padlet.com/k1652337/ g06kxkhm5gngmyn6> [Accessed 29 May 2021]. Folio Society. (2021). Beautifully Illustrated Hardcover Books | Folio Society. [online] Available from: <https:// www.foliosociety.com/uk> [Accessed 8 March 2021]. Gillen, K., (2020). 7 Food Trends That Will Reign Supreme in 2021. [online] PureWow. Available from: <https://www.purewow.com/food/food-trends-2021> [Accessed 8 March 2021]. Good Housekeeping Web Team. (2021). Our guide to the best cookbooks to buy now. [online] Good Housekeeping. Available from: <https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/uk/lifestyle/editors-choice-bookreviews/g25840997/best-cookbooks/?slide=14> [Accessed 8 March 2021]. Gordon, C., (2021). Molly Baz’s ‘Cook This Book’ is Heating up the Cookbook Industry. [online] Printmag. com. Available at: <https://www.printmag.com/post/molly-baz-s-cook-this-book-design-is-heating-up-thecook-book-industry> [Accessed 29 May 2021]. Hardie Grant. (2021). Hardie Grant Books London. [online]. Available from: https://www.hardiegrant.com/ uk/books [Accessed 8 March 2021] Gestalten UK. (2021). Gestalten. [online]. Available from: https://uk.gestalten.com [Accessed 29 May 2021]. Interlink Publishing. (2021). Parwana - Recipes and Stories from an Afghan Kitchen. [online] Available at: <https://www.interlinkbooks.com/product/parwana/> [Accessed 29 May 2021]. Klanten, R. and Matthias H. (2008). Fully Booked: Cover Art & Design for Books. Berlin: Gestalten
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