Concept Cookbook Design
BOOK COVER DESIGN
BOOK INTERIOR LAYOUT CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
CREATIVE DIRECTION
Books are a favorite of mine, both personally and professionally. I started my career designing books, and it remains one of my great loves. Here’s a cookbook concept I created just for fun.
The Concept Veg Forward is a conceptual design that I came up with to scratch my book-design itch. The book cover is simple yet elegant, a large, beautiful photograph overlaid with clean, bold typography. There is no clutter, and it’s very clear what kind of book this is.
Attention to detail is paramount in designing a book that is elevated far beyond its contents. Veg Forward has recipes organized and color-coded according to season, and those colors extend to the sprayed edges and folios. A folio can be a simple number at the bottom of the page, but I wanted every aspect of this book to serve aesthetics and utility. I added this element to enhance and reinforce the book’s creative cohesiveness without being obtrusive. These careful considerations combine into seamless beauty while making it easy to jump to a particular section/season.
The inside front cover (end sheet) is an illustration I created of vegetables in bright, cheerful green. Many books have blank endsheets, but I believe utilizing this space as another creative element adds to the overall visual appeal. The title page is the same illustration, softened for a background to the book title.
I found a delicious recipe on Milk Street and gorgeous photography that accompanied it (see below for all recipe and interior photo credits). I adjusted the image to my liking and used a full bleed – taking up the entire page opposite the recipe – so that the cook gets a clear likeness of the result.
I selected clean fonts for the recipe page, sectioned the typography for easy following, and created a call-out box for ideas about using leftovers. Here again is a detail that serves the reader and the design, and makes a great selling point.
I got to use all the programs, experience and skills that I have enjoyed throughout my design career – photography, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and my own creativity to showcase the many ways an established professional graphic designer can elevate a book that may never occur to a self-publishing author. It’s the best of all my professional worlds colliding joyfully!
And you can’t have a fake book launch without social media, so I created some Insta posts just for some extra fun!
Note: I came up with the name Veg Forward in the early stages of this concept, and while I was working on it another cookbook by the same name was released in real life! The author is Susan Spungen, who I follow on Instagram and I highly recommend her Veg Forward cookbook!
Recipe link; recipe photo: Connie Miller of CB Creatives; styling: Christine Tobin.