M E N Ü
photography, art direction
and graphic design of our first own cookbook
and graphic design of our first own cookbook
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Our book is a collection of tales, stories from our friends who are working on shaping the gastroculture in today’s Budapest. The stories are completed by recipes, which make the public portfolio become a cookbook.
The ingredients are provided by twenty-two participants who, although have different motivations, all cook with the same dedication. For the compilation of the book we didn’t necessarily and exclusively look for culinary experiences, but also for the perception that deems food as the primary tool of community building and knowledge transfer. Each artist welcomed us for a meal, and while we ate they told us why it is so important for them to create something in this particular field. Most of them do their cooking while being tied down by other obligations and jobs, so on the one hand the book celebrates this compatibility, and on the other we wanted to introduce some of those who are already professional chefs, cooking in their own kitchens.
MENU is a momentary overview of our friends’ current standings in the gastronomy of Budapest – or closely connected to Budapest – today. The book is made in a limited 1000 copies, which is a decision reasoned by the artistic perception and attention, with which we would like to provide a unique experience that a rare object can give. There is an English translation at the back of the book consisting the Hungarian text in total.
Each book was numbered manually with the help of a numbering stamp. The hardcover was bound with natural canvas. We used blind embossing on the front board and white relief printing on the spine. We applied a blind embossed M logo on the back cover. Three ribbons of different colors were placed in the book, symbolizing the three authors' unity.
For the section featuring colored imagery we used thick offset stock and for the text-based English translation a natural white-toned paper. Our main goal with the design was to combine the photographs with a pure, minimalistic graphic layout. There are delicate line drawings throughout the book demonstrating the proper way of preparing a dumpling, tortellini, etc. The same visual indications appear on every recipe page in the form of pictograms such as gluten-free, lactose-free etc.
photo — Balázs Glódi
graphics — Eszter Laki
text — Kamilla Mihály
graphics — Eszter Laki
text — Kamilla Mihály
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