MELTING POT PUBLICATION DESIGN
I started this project by defining what the publication’s identity would be, highlighting key words and ideas to eventually come up with a concept statement: Melting Pot aims to introduce diverse and unfamiliar, yet toothsome flavors to readers by showcasing sapid cuisine from around the world.
The key ideas I wanted to visually showcase throughout the spreads and cover is that of unity yet diversity. Melting Pot (as suggested in its name) highlights foods from various regions of the world, bringing them together between pages. Once my concept was honed in, I began to design the word mark.
Wordmark
The wordmark or “logo” of Melting Pot would act as the first symbol people see when reading the publication. It should unify all of the ideas of melting pot in one simple typographic sequence. A lot of my process was searching for existing typefaces and modifying them in ways that evoke keywords of our brand.
Final Wordmark
My final wordmark uses the typeface “Fraunces” developed by Flavia Zimbardi and Phaedra Charles. The typeface itself felt very professional yet welcoming with the subtle rounded serifs with bold contrasting strokes. The font had ideas of diversity as well with slanted counters and legs which I capitalized on more by rotating the e slightly and adjusting the apex of the t’s. The font itself had great unity but one thing I changed was flattening the descender of the g to create harmony with the baseline.
Spreads
The next element I needed to study was the layout, body text and ruleset for each spread. I had chat gpt write an article with sidebars, subheads and captions to include in my publication. I looked to layout the text in ways that made sense to read for the audience while also being experimental and conveying the idea of the Melting Pot brand.
After I had a general sense of what the typographic layout of each of my spreads would look like, I then had the challenge of adding images. I needed my images to work together with my text for a cohesive identity. Incorporating images would also help tremendously in communicating the unity and diversity of my brand so my execution would be very important.
Final Spreads
The Final spreads use type from different languages and alphabets with images to harmonize with my outlined keywords. The body text flows in a readable way while complimenting the subject with asymmetry. Gradients were also used as an extra visual element because the ide
Table of Contents and Cover
At this point of the project I understood the identity of melting pot and the next step was transferring the rules I had created in the spreads into the table of contents and publication cover. These pages were different in the way that they should utilize various elements to act as an intro to the visual system and they should be able to be recreated in similar ways for future publications.
Final Cover and Content Page