NMP research: Inside layout
More sketchy pictures of themes, icons, infographics used in cookbooks. Ended up buying the ‘flavour thesaurus’ book (bottom right).
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NMP research: Cover design
Very bad pictures from my phone, but a few cover designs I took in Waterstones this weekend, looking at texture, type, layout.
InDesign tut. 20/2/12
In the afternoon I went to Jules’ InDesign recap as I’ve never actually had a lesson on it. I was familiar with the very basics of it, but there were some really handy tips that’ll save me a lot of time in the future. The ‘master page’ was something I’ve never properly grasped but Jules showed us how to add page numbers which will obviously be essential for my NMP book. Grouping of all media (images, fonts etc) through File > Package > Save is infinitely useful for keeping stuff together that you’ve used in folders, or for sending it.
App Design tut. 20/2/12
Went to the first part of the App Design tutorial last week. A lot of the thought behind it is common sense and can be noted just by using a few apps; prioritising buttons with regards to placement and space, limiting the app to a few ‘levels’ so there’s no need to go too deeply into it, making the ‘hitpoint’ a decent size, reachability on the screen and other general usability aspects.
A few more useful tips were the ‘behavioural groups’ classified as:
- Urgent now - looking up/finding info e.g. train times
- Repetitive now - e.g. Facebook, Tumblr
- Bored now - e.g. Exploring, playing games, Facebook
and the most important part: usability > design.
This will all be useful and considered for a possible branch off on my NMP.
How recipes can be shown as infographics such as these illustrated pieces by Kroosje Koene
Also started looking at food related infographics, like this one from 1943…
A few examples of the little extras included in the Leon cookbooks. First chart is pinched from Google as mine’s too battered/light’s bad in this whole house (see cheese map picture).
NMP research….. 1/3… Cookbook
Been looking through some of my cookbooks that have served me well over the last 3 years, I’d like to take a little inspiration from each of them for my final project. At the moment I’m looking down the route of combining a cookbook and a ‘choose your own’ adventure type book (where the reader’s choices determine the outcome). I thought doing a straight forward recipe book would be a bit bland and obvious, so I’ll look to make it more interactive and personal. My initial ideas are to make it clean, simplistic, easy to follow as well as easy on the eye, with recurring themes. Not fully confident with how it will work yet, but the aspect of ‘making the best of what you have’ would be most appropriate, as I know a fair few people (myself included) that normally end up Googling whatever ingredients they have to find a recipe. Obviously there’s nothing wrong with that, but I’ll try to take that habit and put it into a book which makes the most of people’s personal tastes, allowing for changes to suit that individual. This will probably be by outlining at the start some base/staple ingredients that are in most recipes and therefore very versatile to cook with and avoid having to throw away unused food.
NMP research….. 2/3… Design & print
Leon has been a big favourite of mine - their cookbooks have everything; illustration, typography, photography, collage and of course great recipes. They have a real homely feel, with little anecdotes from the team; how the recipe has been passed down through generations, how it was discovered by accident etc.
They have morals and stick to them, mainly the food being completely natural and produce being ethically attained. Both books really encourage people to learn about the food they cook with and give guides on the best food to buy based on colour, feel, etc. as food in supermarkets can often be completely different to how it should naturally be.
The design is what really grabs the attention, though, with a lot of time and effort clearly going into it. As well as brilliant typography and illustrations, there are surprises in the actual design of the book, with fold out and ‘see through’ pages, posters and charts in pockets scattered throughout. There are examples in the images above but there’s not enough space on Tumblr to really do it justice. I’d like to adopt this style of having something different from flat pages, to really interact with the reader.
