Living and Eating
John Pawson and Annie Bell
Published by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 2001 (Hardback)
Originally published by Ebury Press, 2001
Design John Pawson and William Hall
Photography Christoph Kicherer
Food stylists Louise Pickford, Susie Theodoru
As you might expect from a book designed by an architect known for his simple and refined interiors, this book achieves a lot with very little. The design of the book is incredibly controlled and well-considered. The grid is made explicit from the start and is rigorously adhered to, as is the systematic typography which uses only two weights and two sizes of Univers throughout the book. Despite being very systematic, there are enough light touches - such as the indented list of ingredients and the varied cropping of photographs - to make the book feel animated. There is a paradox, of course, that design such as this, which aims for a pared back economy that is intended to recede into the background, actually draws attention to itself (if it’s done well) by its very ‘perfection’. Which, I guess, is the ethos of John Pawson’s practice.
Ultimately, this book is about aspiration and fantasy: it presents an idealised, aestheticised ascetic existence that for most people is either unachievable or undesirable. The fantasy is established by the pared down design of this book which, with its controlled typographic palette, suggests that design can rationalise the world and by the photographs which show the half-truth of living and eating in a rationalised interior. The photographs, as in most cook books, show a sanitised ideal of cooking, not the whole story - not the mess of unwashed pans nor the aftermath of eating: the splashed tablecloth, the greasy plates and the picked-over chicken carcass. In the same way that individual objects take on a significance when photographed in these interiors, the lack of evidence of mess generated by cooking also has its own significance - a denial of cooking as process.
I feel there is a conflict between the typographic treatment of the recipes and the photographs of the lifestyle presented in it. The typography is near perfect, both in terms of functionality - this is a great book to cook from - and in terms of the atmosphere generated by the typography - the calm and ordered tone seems, to me, appropriate to present the practice of cooking. However, I feel that the photographs in the book, which show a stripped back existence, that, paradoxically, is only achievable with lots of money, is problematic because it links cooking to lifestyle. The photographs in this book may have a function of showing us what the food looks like but, in their denial of the process of cooking and in the presentation of food as part of sometimes unachievable lifestyles, they also contribute to a problem that crystallises the idea that cook books are for looking not cooking.
Front cover
The cover shows a photograph of a domestic interior, the focus of which is a baked sea bass in a roasting tin on a wooden table; the photograph also shows a napkin and a bowl of salsa, placed on the table in front of a wooden chair, and a blur of white suggesting activity. The photograph is precisely composed: the roasting tin is aligned to the edge of the table for example and there is a strong relationship between the objects, the edge of the photograph, the border and the typography of the book cover. By nature of the fact that there are so few objects in the photograph, there is a sense that each object carries meaning and significance. The table has been photographed from above giving the impression that the viewer is standing, looking down at the table - this is unusual, as most food photography is shot at a lower angle, giving the suggestion that the viewer is seated at the table and about to take part in the meal.
The photograph has a limited palette of muted colours. The image is divided almost equally between two dominant colours: the pale duck egg blue of the background and the pale warm orange of the wood of the table; the line which divides these two planes of colours is angled, creating a dynamic composition. The silvery sea bass is placed in a black grey metal roasting tin which appears off-centre in the bottom half of the image, close to the right-hand and bottom edges, generating a strong tension.
The elegant curve of the back of the chair and the small white circular bowl containing the salsa appear in the upper left corner of the image, offering a contrast to the straight edges and angles in the rest of the photograph and animating the edge of the image. Although no-one is seated in the chair, it acts as a metonym for a person. This perfectly-composed still-life has a strange blur of activity on the right: at first glance, it appears that the surface of the book has been accidentally removed with an eraser, on second glance, it appears to have been added in Photoshop, on third glance it seems that someone came in or out of shot as the photograph was being taken, perhaps to place the roasting tin on the table. Whether the blur in the image is intentional or not, I think it was used because it presents the idea of living, of movement, in an otherwise still-life.
The photograph is contained within a 17mm border at the top, bottom and right that reveals the pale cream paper of the dust jacket. The dust jacket is matt laminated, beneath it, the cover is completely white save for the title and authors’ names on the spine. On the dust jacket, the authors’ names and the title are contained in the bottom margin, printed in black, at the same point size, in Univers 55. There are no other details on the front cover.
This is the US edition which has a different cover from the UK edition; to my mind, the US version is more successful than the UK edition as it feels more analogous to the contents, being based on the same grid as the interior and using a photograph that is more typical of the ones found inside than the one on the UK edition.
Inside Pages
The book is 19 cm by 24.5 cm, printed full colour on off-white matt coated paper. The layout is based on a three-column grid of equal size with equal margins at top, bottom, left and right. The book uses just two weights of Univers in two sizes, in black and 50% black to create a sophisticated typographic hierarchy to order the various kinds of information in the book: titles are ranged left in Univers 55; the author’s commentary and the method are set in Univers 45, ranged left with a ragged right; the ingredients are set in Univers 45 at a smaller point size and are indented by 6mm. Further emphasis is added with line spacing: two line spaces beneath the titles, one line space before the ingredients and between paragraphs. Paragraphs are indented by 6mm which, although unnecessary, helps break up the ‘blockiness’ of the text and add rhythm. Sub-headings within the ingredients are emphasised with a 50% tint. One subtle touch is that the numerals representing the quantities of ingredients appear to the left of the indent and are ranged right, with a narrow space before the ingredients themselves - once again, this breaks up the ‘blockiness’ of the text and helps the reader to absorb the information.
The book is divided into sections that cover kitchen design, equipment, home making and types of food: soup, eggs and cheese, pasta and risottos, shellfish and fish etc. Each section opens on the verso: the title of the section is set in Univers 55, at the same size as the body text, and is positioned in the top left-hand corner of the page. Emphasis is created by the use of white space: the text begins on the third, right-hand column. On the recto page is a photograph that has an equal border around it. A contents page at the front and index at the back, use the same clear and refined typographic hierarchy and layout that appears throughout the book creating a functional unity and harmony.
Photographs are placed throughout the book; they follow the blueprint established by the photograph on the cover but mostly without the blur of activity. All use the same muted colour scheme and have the same perfectly-composed and stripped down aesthetic and, although many have the same raised viewpoint of the cover photograph, others have a lower viewpoint, more common in cook books, that gives the reader the impression of being seated at a table. Some of the photographs move away from food photography to document the interior of John Pawson’s house. Surprisingly, people and (artfully placed) clutter feature in these photographs of pared down interiors which look, also surprisingly, warm and inviting.
The photographs themselves are cropped in different ways within the grid: none are at full bleed, all have borders that relate to the margins of the grid on the top and bottom, sometimes the photograph bleeds off the edge of the page; sometimes into the gutter; occasionally the image may extend onto the opposite page, lining up with the margin or the column; there are also occasional double-page spreads.
All recipes start at the top of the page with the title set in Univers 55 with two line space below, if the recipe continues over two columns, the text continues at the same level as the first line. Further liveliness is added by the positioning of the recipes: most pages use all three columns of the grid but, for variety, two, and very occasionally, one of the columns is used. Running heads, marking each section, appear on far left of the recto page, running upwards in the margin, they are set in Univers 45 and are aligned to the bottom line of the columns; the pagination appears at the top of the margin, aligned to the top of the columns.