Cooking With Caz Cookbook
A close friend reached out to me for an opportunity to work on a cookbook she wanted to publish, which we worked on collaboratively to create the final product we were both proud of.
The Cookbook Cover
My client wanted the layout of the front cover to be quite simple, leaving the reader with just the right information about her brand name and what the book is about. I also took on her recommendation of a circle shape to use like a sticker to attract the users to it and to highlight her slogan for the book. Once the elements were together in the right layout, I was able to finalise the design and edit some of the background to fit the exact resolution for the cover guidelines with the clone tool.
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With the spine, my client decided to use the same fonts as the front cover to keep the consistency on the book cover design. Then, she gave me the idea to have the pattern of her dress as the background of the spine. So, I had to edit in the patterns from the other pictures of her dress to compile a suitable outcome that fit well and allowed the text to stand out still.
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Lastly, the back cover had a simple design to only give the user some insight from the blurb and then reveal some of the pictures from the recipes inside. Then, my client also wanted me to add her logo and tagline in the centre and the cover was finished.
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The Introduction Pages
These pages were there to introduce the users to my client's story, go-to ingredients, menu suggestions and the food basics of the Zimbabwean culture (this especially was for those who may be new to Zimbabwean food). We both worked together to figure out how the layouts for each page should look and we were able to go for a minimalistic, but professional look whilst having a unique look for each section.
The Recipes
The layout concepts for the recipe pages were designed before the book was to be for print, over the former method of releasing it digitally. Once the main project started, we were able to use the same layout but without most of the visual graphics planned for the background. Then, we worked together to form the range of compositions for the recipes and the images for them. Because the the recipes were different lengths, we were able to get more creative with the layouts we had for the range of recipes throughout the book.
The Dividers
My client wanted some divider pages between the different types of recipes and so we went for a menu look with a strip of the pattern from her dress pictures. We also decided to put a clipping mask of the pattern on the text as well to keep the consistency. With the background, I placed a marble texture on it but it didn't really fit the style. Then, because the white background was quite plain, we decided to put a crumpled paper texture on it instead.
The Playlist
There was an idea that my client had for a song to go with every recipe, and to also include a full playlist of all the songs at the back of the book. So she gave me the idea to use some inspiration of the layout from Obama's 2020 playlist, with the title of the meal associated with the tracks. We decided that a black/dark grey, white and orange colour scheme would work best for the playlist, and also to use orange to indicate to the recipe names. Then, we added some text details like a description of the playlist, her logo and a copyright disclaimer.
Image Manipulation
I was also behind the editing of all the photos that she took for each recipe and I was able to use the Photoshop Camera Raw plugin to achieve a high quality outcome. Alongside these enhancements, I cleaned up the imperfections in her photos and even had to remove some backgrounds or amplify/supress details like spills and light reflection.