Project Description:

The project revolves around a local event for celebrating books and food. Basically, people come together with edible arrangements based on books, they encourage each other to read the books and talk about them, and then dig in. We will be there, but our covers will be printed on paper. Technically edible, but we aren’t supposed to eat them. We will be integrating food into our designs. Using food alongside digital tools to make something aesthetically appealing.

Phase One:

Despite the name, the final product of this project will not be edible. It’s called that because of where we start, and where we start is with 25 images of food letters. We chose a word to try to anchor our work in, and I chose BREATHE. I chose it because I could do a lot wth it in my mind. You will see a lot of Bs and Es and Ts, and Hs. experimenting with single letters. It just needed to be made out of food. Food waste scares me but I did do it. Stale bread.

Phase Two:

We then moved on to using trinkets and random stuff around us to do the same thing as before. I have 50 total of these images. I have so much garbage in my room. I’m an artist of course I do. we were supposed to use things we can’t eat, but I could eat wood and paint, and no one could stop me. I’ve eaten so much wood in my life. I’ve also eaten a lot of dirt. I was a weird kid. The wood thing I still do. After that, we presented our work to the rest of the class for feedback. For some reason, my phone’s storage was full. It’s no longer like that, I deleted Dracula x chronicles RIP. Honestly, playing it on my phone was hard. I need buttons for reaction times.

Phase Three:

Then we chose our books. I chose Frankenstein because it’s one of my favorites and I need an anchor to get me going in a direction. I started messing around with whole words. i started mangling files in a copier because I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do so I just needed to do something. If I fail, then I learn. If I succeed, that’s less work for next week.

Phase Four:

We then went into further Photoshop work and started planning the back and flaps. The image on the far left shows cake mix. When edited, it gives off the right crunch and makes it look like snow. On the right is a non-final version of my cover. I’m redoing the romative type. I can do better. I’m putting it all into those pieces of flavor text.

My idea is to reflect the lens through which Frankenstein is told. A ship finds a man wandering in the Arctic, pursued by his creation to the ends of the earth. On his deathbed, he tells the story of how he got there. The monster breaks into the cabin at the end, only to throw itself off the side of the ship in grief.

Reflection:

This project has been a rude awakening to my attachment to my process. I felt like I was working backwards. Aimlessly swinging around ideas just to get it done. I had no endgame in mind. I couldn’t see the horizon. I had ideas, but very few ideas of how to execute them. Throwing around bases and brushes, and model kits. Making a mess of ketchup on the fridge and cutting up bread. My brain was chugging, and I was stuck in a mindset of “I’ll figure it out next week, I just need to make it to next week, and it will all be okay.” It eventually worked itself out, but the road to get there was unpaved and a stressful mess. Ripping up paper and piecing it back together was a nice way to let out steam, and it’s what I ended up going with. I was glad I was able to work on the edible part of the assignment, even though it wasn’t technically necessary, because it makes me feel satisfied. I feel like I didn’t cheat my way out of the assignment because of it.

Final: