Client: Storey Publishing
Art Director: Carolyn Eckert
I started my creative career as a book designer, and it's that medium that really allowed me to develop my style as an illustrator. These days, I do a lot of illustration, but not much book design or even illustration for books, so I was really excited when Carolyn from Storey Publishing came to me with this project.
Priya Krishna is one of the bloggers over at Small Kitchen College, a great resource for college students who want to prepare great meals, even on a limited budget. Priya decided to parlay the knowledge and recipes she accumulated in college into a cookbook that allows other college students to create all sorts of meals, snacks, and beverages using only the resources given to them for free by their college's dining hall.
Since this type of cookbook didn't really lend itself to the typical "food porn" photography you might find in Rachael Ray's latest tome, Storey asked me to create exploded diagrams of each recipe, since it was more important to focus on the actual ingredients for each recipe.
The infographic design carried over into the chapter openers, where I came up with a flowchart for each of the chapter's recipes. This way students could easily decide what they were in the mood for, or if they wanted to avoid any specific ingredients like meat or dairy, with just a few basic questions.
For students who were used to seeing architecture schematics or diagrams of chemical equations, a blueprint of chilaquiles was almost second nature.
So you want some meat with that salad? Would you prefer chicken or bacon? Bacon? Well then you might be in the mood for...
BLT Chopped Salad
Every ingredient you would need was accounted for, even a dash or two of chili powder, such as in this recipe for Sloppy Joes.
Students could easily see at a glance which ingredients, and dining hall equipment, they would need to use for each recipe, such as in this recipe for a Spinach Artichoke Melt.
Pining for pasta? Most of the recipes call for cheese, but if you're lactose intolerant, or maybe want a Vegan option, you might be interested in...
Teriyaki Pasta, which allows you to PYOP, or Pick Your Own Protein, to allow flexibility for Vegans, or even those who eat only fish but not other meats.
Some of the more eclectic meal choices, such as...
Greek Pizza
Snacks come in all shapes and sizes. Someting savory, something sweet? Something for Vegans, something with meat? Again some recipes let you PYOP, so whether you want hunks of delicious beef, or cruelty-free tofu, there's delicious snacks like...
Asian Lettuce Wraps
And there were even some desserts included, such as these homemade Snow Cones that could be made with nothing more than some gummi bears, sugar, fruit punch and some ice cubes, thrown into a blender.
Banana Boats
You can pick up a copy of Ultimate Dining Hall Hacks here, or at your local bookseller.
