Something for the Weekend
60 Fabulous Recipes for a Lazy Brunch
Simon Rimmer & Tim Lovejoy
Published by Quadrille Publishing, 2010 (Hardback)
Creative Director Jane O’Shea
Designed by Katherine Case
Photographs by William Reavell
Food Stylist Valerie Berry
Something for the Weekend is a strange book that is somehow so connected, through its visual codes, with a televisual ‘reality’ that it seems disconnected to the actual reality of print in which it exists. The book is designed to project a blokey masculinity which is constructed through various means: through a strong colour palette that is established from the start by the bold colours of the cover photograph, which is then echoed in the vivid colours in the food photography and reinforced by the use of strong colours in the typography which is chunky, bold and, in places, spontaneous and playful. I have never seen the programme itself but, reading the clues presented in the design of this book, I get a strong feel of what it is like: I may be wrong, but, to me, the overwhelmingly matey atmosphere, generated by the design of the book, feels like a bloke shouting VERY LOUDLY in a pub. I imagine most people come to this book with a knowledge of the TV show itself - it would be interesting to see how the televisual reality matches the reality generated in print by the design of this book.
Front Cover
The cover shows a portrait photograph, by Owen Bilcliffe, of the two authors of the book. The authors are depicted leaning against a kitchen worktop surrounded by pots and pans; cooking utensils including a plethora of wooden spoons; and some random cooked dishes. The focus of the photograph is the two presenters; a closer inspection reveals a lack of connection between the cooked dishes and the cooking utensils placed in front of them - despite the conceit that the presenters have been spontaneously captured midway through cooking, the randomness of the props in front of them suggests that the photograph has been staged. The kitchen appears to be the set of their ‘hugely successful Sunday morning BBC TV series’: the ‘cupboards’, painted a vivid green, are cutout MDF squares; the lighting is harsh and multi-directional; and the colours are vibrant and strong with the synthetic sheen and hyper-reality of high-definition mainstream television.
The authors are dressed casually but smart, each in belted, dark blue denim jeans and freshly-ironed long sleeve shirts; a checked Lee Western shirt for one and a plain blue button-down Fred Perry for the other. Both are smiling at the camera and are leaning forward with their hands on the counter. There is a suggestion that, behind the large white plate, their hands are touching.
The photograph is printed full bleed and, as such, is the dominant element on the cover. The title of the book is placed in the top quarter of the cover; it is centred, reversed out of the photograph and set in uppercase Helvetica bold condensed. The subtitle appears above the title set in centred uppercase Akzidenz Grotesk, at a much smaller point size and printed in a pale mint green. The authors’ names appear at the bottom of the cover, set in centred Helvetica bold condensed and printed in black. The publisher’s logo is placed to the left of the authors’ names, with a strapline establishing that this is a book from a TV series.
Despite the presence of two men in a domestic setting and the attendant assumption that they may be a couple, the bold colours in the photograph and the punchy typography - which are reminiscent of the designs found on supermarket own-brand lager cans - suggest otherwise, signifying a relaxed and blokey masculinity which is reinforced by the title of the book which infers the all-male and largely heterosexual world of the barber shop. What is most disconcerting about the photograph though is how, when removed from the medium in which it was originally presented, the ‘kitchen’ and every item within it - including the presenters - is revealed as a fabrication.
Inside Pages
The book is 20 cm by 25 cm and is printed full colour on matt white coated paper with Akzidenz Grotesk, in regular and bold and printed in a dense black, for the body text. Each recipe has a double-page spread with a photograph of the finished dish on one page and the recipe on the other. The recipes are all based on the same basic grid; the title of each recipe, printed in a strong burgundy red, is set in different combinations of Akzidenz Grotesk and condensed Helvetica bold in various sizes introducing an air of spontaneity; variety is created by alternating the placing of the photograph - which can be either full bleed or with a border - on the verso and recto pages. The page numbers are set in bold Akzidenz Grotesk, printed in burgundy red and positioned at the top outside edge of the page, becoming a somewhat over-dominant design element on each page. The typography of the book, which could be described as no-nonsense in its approach, could never be described as subtle.
Chapter openings are double-page spreads with variation, on a larger scale, of the recipe title treatments on the verso page and, on the recto, snapshots of the upcoming dishes, presented in the manner of Polaroid images with typewritten captions and arranged in an informal manner on a solid blue background. Given the tone set by the titles of each chapter ‘Beers with the Boys’, ‘The Olds Round for Brunch’ etc you can understand how the designers took the ‘in-your-face’ approach to the design of the book.
The food photography in the book continues the atmosphere established by the photograph on the cover: this is big, bold, intensely coloured imagery that in places, such as the pork loin with fig and balsamic vinegar has such an over-processed, high-definition sheen that it appears unreal, almost abstract. The food is fairly conventionally presented and styled with close-ups of food with little or no backgrounds; a wide variety of colourful plates, bowls and serving dishes are used to present the dishes, these are placed on a variety of surfaces which are, unsurprisingly, given the masculine feel of the book, predominantly hard surfaces such as stainless steel or Formica - there are no chintzy Cath Kidston tablecloths here!