See the designs in full in the work section.

Award-winning chefs from the area have come together to share their favorite recipes and to encourage us to buy locally. It is a good reminder that there are many opportunities available from farmers’ markets, home delivery of vegetable boxes to small independent butchers.

At the start of the design process the following factors had to be considered:
- There were 12 recipes that needed to be presented in a loose format
- These recipes needed to be bundled up in some kind of packaging
- The main function of the packaging was for storage and to ensure safe distribution

Since the recipe packs were to be posted out, the final decision was to go with a glossy wrap around cover and held together with a rubber band. This proved to be a good choice as it worked within the budget and was cost effective for mailing.

When designing the recipe cards I wanted to make the most of the stunning photography from Joby Catto. It was also important to showcase the top chefs that Deanna Thomas had brought together by providing a dedicated profile space on each card. Some of the venues such as the Yang Sing, owned by Harry Yeung, has been based in Chinatown since 1977 and is a restaurant steeped in history. This, along with the generosity of the chefs in sharing their knowledge, adds to the richness of Manchester’s food culture.

The back of the recipe pack provides a preview of all the different dishes you can make.

The recipe for the month of September is a seasonal salad by Lewis Clare of Red House Farm. Given that I have a sweet tooth, I’m very tempted to try the raspberry cake with crumble topping recipe (by Little Bird Catering) from last month and take up Robyn’s suggestion of using apples to make a more autumnal version.

The limited edition recipe pack is available from the Visit Manchester website:
www.visitmanchester.com/food

Go get a yourself a copy!

I recently worked on some illustrations for the BBC Research & Development team based at MediaCityUK, Salford. The team there have been working on a Perceptive Media experiment, which was launched last night at Social Media Cafe Manchester.

Perceptive Media is very exciting as it could change how we view TV in future by providing a customised experience. To get a full (and better) explanation of Perceptive Media, I would urge you to read Ian Forrester’s posts at the BBC R&D blog or cubicgarden.com. Martin Bryant from Social Media Cafe Manchester has also written some good articles on this topic.

BBC R&D’s first Perceptive Media prototype is called “Breaking out” and the illustrations I created have been used to help visually engage audiences while the audioplay is running.

You can have a go at this Perceptive Media demo yourself at futurebroadcasts.com.

The experiment has been created with an UK audience in mind so if you are viewing from abroad you might not get quite the experience the creators are trying to provide.

Hope you all have a Happy Jubilee Weekend!

If you haven’t seen it already – do have a look at the Queen Elizabeth II infographic.

It was nice of them to give it some exposure, and made all the hard work of putting it together feel more worthwhile.