Stirred & Simmered

Role: Co-Professor
Level: Undergraduate // Diversity Studies Requirement
Term: Fall 2010
California College of the Arts

Course Description

In 2010, my Graphic Design class partnered with the La Cocina Food Business Incubation Program to investigate the culinary traditions, practices and values that live within each of the businesses participating in the program. Students gathered stories through ethnographic interviews with business owners then began a process of analysis by identifying and visualizing patterns of process into patterns and typographic forms. These graphic marks were then used as a base for creating a visual language in which to graphically present these culinary narratives in a printed format. Here, the designer is positioned as part author, part narrator of a personal culinary story which requires sensitivity to the original storyteller and the social, economic and cultural issues present within the story. The finished design work and recipes were collected into a narrative-type cookbook that was self-published and sold to benefit a choice community organization or cause.

The overarching goal of the project was to gain understanding of the role visual language plays in the definition and characterization of a business and its products. Recipes and culinary processes, like visual graphics, are more than the sum of their parts – they influence the way a story is told thus affecting its transmission to an external audience. By exploring and presenting these narratives through design we exemplify the power and possibility of graphic design to share cultural diversity and promote engagement with traditional culinary practices.

The course was part of the ENGAGE at CCA program.