Week 1

Coming into this semester, I didn’t have as much done for my capstone as I wanted. I had some type explorations, recipes, and I’d experimented with baking bread and other recipes the semester before.

I was nervous, but still very much interested in my capstone subject choice. My problem statement hasn’t changed since last semester, and I don’t think it will. Below is a slide from my recap presentation with inspirational imagery and my problem statement:

Constraint One: Audience
Jewish Americans (ages 18–30) who have lost touch with their culture and history. I want it to be modern and engaging while still relating it back to the older history/culture of Judaism.

Constraint Two: Content
The content will include recipes for different Jewish holidays (Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Hannukah, Passover, and Purim) which are joyous holidays filled with traditions revolving around food and celebration. I’d also like to include a section with more information on the history behind each holiday.

Constraint Three: Medium
This will be a collection of 5 book, so the medium will be print. The content will be split between 5 books, one per holiday.

Immediate Outcome
My immediate outcome is to educate young Jewish Americans on 5 main Jewish holidays and recipes for food for those holidays.

Intermediate Outcome
My intermediate outcome is to reconnect young Jewish Americans to their culture/history of their people/religion.

My questions going into Week 2 and the rest of the semester are below:

Where will I get my content?
How do I design an engaging book?
Where do I illustrate vs photograph?
Is my project narrow enough? Is it too narrow?
How do I create something that relates both to a younger generation and the older history of an entire religion?