Ideation
Idea 1: Breakfast in different countries
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and people from different places eat breakfast differently. As a traveler and breakfast person, I want to create a book to introduce breakfasts from different cultures based on my own experience & research. It will be a photo/illustration based book with some texts for explanations. The goal is to help people learn about how different cultures interpret the best meal to start one’s day.
Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5kGVV8AA0I
Idea 2: Cooking Instant Ramen
Instant ramen is one of my go-to meals since it’s cheap, easy-to-cook, and delicious. However, besides just adding the boiling water, there are more things that you can do to it. For example, I once followed a recipe and made a ramen burger. I want to create a book to introduce different ways to cook instant ramen. The book will have photos, illustrations, and the actual recipe.
Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Fy32HKMmWc
Choice
I decided to go with the first option. I then set the goal, audience, and the expected tone of the book.
Goal: Tell readers what a typical breakfast looks like in different cultures.
Audience: Anyone
Tone: Lighthearted, playful, informative
Sketches
I approached this project by thinking about what information I would like to include for each breakfast.
The rough list of the information to include: food illustration, food introduction, tableware, style(individual/family), country name.
I then started sketching out some layout options. Some of the questions in my mind were: Do people usually eat by themselves or eat with families and friends? What if there is more than one traditional breakfast in that culture?
I talked with several people and found that most of them prefer the third layout. One person suggested that in most cultures, there are both family-style and individual breakfast, and I could focus on one in this book. Thus, I decided to focus on how the breakfast looks like for a serving size in different cultures.
I then started digitizing my sketches. I found out that it was pretty hard to fit everything onto one page. Thus I decided to use one thread for one country. In my initial sketch, I put the illustration in the center and the text on the side with arrows pointing to the food that it talks about. However, if I continue with this approach, the page separator will cut the illustration in half and causes some tension. Besides figuring out the best position to put the illustration and the text, I also explored other layout options.
In the meantime, I started making the illustrations for the breakfast food. Considering the book is about 12–16 pages, I decided to include five countries in my book. I started experimenting with the ones that I am more familiar with — Japanese breakfast and Chinese breakfast.
Design Version 1
I created the illustration based on the photos I found on Pinterest and Google.
In the process, I also found that different culture uses different types of dining tables and tablecloth. I think it would also be interesting to include those in my illustration. I used the pattern-making feature in Adobe Illustrator to create those patterns.
I explored both layouts in my sketches with the actual illustration in Adobe InDesign.
Information on each thread includes food illustration, food name (in English & Native Language), food introduction, country name, “breakfast” (in Native Language)
Another thing I wanted to finish before the interim critique was the cover page. I was thinking about using a collage made from the breakfast illustrations as a cover.
Interim Critique
During the critique, I asked people’s opinions about the two layout options and the result was nearly 50:50. People who didn’t like the second layout had the same concern as me: the page separator went through the middle of the illustration. Another thing that many people commented on was the design of the cover page. Some people found the matching confusing while others expected the cover to be less similar to the actual contents. One person also commented that the left and the right page of a thread was kind of unbalanced because of the large white space on the right page.
Thus, the main tasks for me were: 1. Improve the design of the content layout and keep the balance between the left and right pages. 2. Redesign the cover page. 3. Decide on the list of countries that I want to include and continue working on the illustration.
Design Version 2
I took out my sketchbook and sketched new designs for the cover page. The general approach was to take one or two items from each breakfast combination and made a new collage with them.
In addition, I added a table of contents. It’s a world map with the places that the book includes pinned.
I decided to go with the first option for the content page layout, which was the one with the main illustration on the left page and a list of detailed-explanations on the right page. To bring more balance and cut down the white space on the right page, I added a country map there.
Remote Class Feedback
Most people thought the new cover was much better than the old one since it was not a duplicate of the book’s content anymore. Since I only uploaded the B&W draft of the cover and the table of contents, many people commented that I should add more colors to both pages in order to keep the same tone across the whole book.
Design Version 3
I finally decided to go with the third option for the cover page design since I could reuse the elements in the illustration I have already created. I added a background-color to make it more inviting.
I got inspired by a sentence I read from an article, “there are as many ways to enjoy the first meal of the day as there are to say ‘good morning.’” I decided to use “Good Morning” in different languages as the hook for my book. I also played around with the color of the map and the background
I decided on my final country list, which was the United Kingdom, China, Japan, France, and Morocco. The reason why I didn’t do the United States was that since most of the readers would be from the US, I would love to take this opportunity to connect them with different cultures.
I then began my long research on how a traditional breakfast looks like in these countries.
I continued to work on the illustration and the text.
Binding
When I went to the Tartan Ink, they told me that I could either bind the book on the top or on the left. I chose to bind the book on the top because I wanted to make this book more approachable than a normal book, something that you can just turn to a random page and explore.
Final Product
Feedback from the class
“The cover change catches the eye much better than previous designs. The layout is working well, and the way it is bound gives it more of an approachable feeling, as well as the soft color choices.”
“This has been a common thread throughout your critiques, but I love the cleanliness and detail of your illustrations. They really pop and draw the reader’s eye.”
“I really liked how your grid was organized. The illustrations were also very appropriate with the color palette you chose”
What I have learned through this project
- How to apply the knowledge we have learned in the previous classes on color, grid, typography, etc to practice and create a design piece from scratch.
- Make the design iterations based on people’s feedback.
- Work with the Adobe InDesign and the Adobe Illustrator.
- Different ways to bind a book.