After reflecting some more about the feedback from the half-way crit two weeks ago, and after some useful email conversations with Paul and Steve and with others at LCC, I feel a bit more on track. I'm still not sure exactly what my final outcome will be but I am taking time to pause and reflect; to look at solutions for presenting recipes beyond books; and to read in more depth about typographic elements.
Once again, I feel I need to reiterate that the project has two strands: one strand is concerned with typography, the construction of language and how typography aids the understanding of a text - in Paul's words 'mechanics, formal structures, image/text relations, progressive disclosure of information, typographic hierarchies, typographic sequences, legibility, comprehension, memory'; the other strand is concerned with how design reflects the assumptions or ideologies of a specific audience.
Paul pointed out that the author is less important than I imagined. Previously, I had looked at how graphic design constructs the authorial voice. I think this still has relevance: the design methods used to construct Delia's voice are very different from those used to construct Jamie's voice and I have learned a lot in analysing them. However, in cook books, the author is generally a member of the group that he is addressing, or is attempting to speak to that group, hence the audience is perhaps more important than the author.
My work until now has addressed a specific audience which is perhaps the audience that most cook books speak to: middle class, Guardian reading, professionals, who shop at the Ginger Pig butcher. Steve suggested a list of possible audiences that I could think about: 'perhaps a cook book for children, or the elderly, the blind, the obese, the fantastically rich, audiences with specific needs that you as a designer you can solve'. Paul suggested thinking 'of the ways in which visual languages (and clichés) address defined audiences and structure a new set of visual pieces that seek to speak to those audiences. One would need first to specify the audience and then a visual vocabulary that is appropriate'.
Paul recommended some books which are slightly different to the books that I have been analysing as part of my cookbookdesign blog - these books have tended to be commercial cook books, usually, but not always, tied in to TV series. Paul reminded me of Jake Tilson - I'd forgotten about his cook books, though I'm familiar with Atlas magazine. I've ordered a copy of A Tale of 12 Kitchens - it will be interesting to look closely at how Tilson uses collage, unique typefaces etc to create a language that is addressing a (possibly) very different audience from the audience of most cook books that I have been looking at. Likewise, Tassajara Cooking, a vegetarian cook book first published in 1973, is coming from a very different place than the majority of cook books I have been looking at. A further recommendation (and one that has been recommended before by Paul and by others) is Len Deighton's Ou est le Garlic? This book was reprinted last year as Len Deighton's French Cooking for Men.
So, aside from reading cook books, my immediate plans are to:
- Re-think/re-focus on my research question and restate what I am trying to achieve.
- Think of the ways in which visual languages address specific audiences.
- Think of an audience that has specific needs and structure a new set of visual pieces that seek to speak to that audience.
- Test and retest alternative arrangements, formats and finishes appropriate to those audiences.
- Continue to analyse existing cook books, exploring how they work typographically and how they address users/readers/lifestyles etc.
- Continue to read and make notes about typography and language and the specifics of how typography functions on the page.