In Winter 2018, Undergraduate students from the ARTH 348: Special Topics in Art and Film: Re-enactment course were assigned a project in which they had to 'reenact' a recipe from their past and produce an essay examining their experiences. In addition to writing, students were free to compliment their personal projects using the artistic medium of their choice, such as photography and illustration. A year later, with permission from the participating students, Art History Professor Maya Oppenheimer and Research Project Coordinator Elizabeth Sanders approached our Design Lab team with the idea of publicizing these essays and accompanying visual content to the Fine Arts Concordia University public in the form of a conceptual cookbook. We were commissioned to design 90 copies where a partial would be sold through and given to Concordia's People's Potato. Over three months, we were responsible in: book and essay concept development, publication design, cover photographs, handwriting type and illustrations, and production coordination with the commissioners and the printers.
I contributed in the areas of artistic direction, production management and coordination as well as illustrations and layout design. I served as the primary point of contact with our project commissioners.
I contributed in the areas of artistic direction, production management and coordination as well as illustrations and layout design. I served as the primary point of contact with our project commissioners.
Team members:
Auguste Courvoisier
Justine Provost
Unna Regino
Lydia Carignan
Justine Provost
Unna Regino
Lydia Carignan
Detail of book interior and layout. Left: example of photography provided by collaborators and authors. Middle: Example of full bleed style layout. Right: Section separation and integration of handwritten calligraphy
Re-enactment recipes is a book compiling 21 recipes and stories from 21 different authors. One major challenge about the process was to cater to every single recipe, adapting the illustrations or layouts to each authors' vision and style. To do this, each essay was read and discussed among the group of 4 designers. This way, we put our brains together to brainstorm and decide on the best way to visually translate the concepts we interpreted in the essays. We received helpful and constructive feedback and planned time for fine-tuning from all collaborators. This kind of dynamic was a very gratifying experience, a taste of what we would like our design practice to be like in future collaborations.
Book launch TBA.
