The document summarizes the design choices for a set of recipe cards promoting international vegetarian cuisine. Key points: 1) Large images were used on the front of each card to attract attention, with ingredients and instructions on the back. Colors represented the country/city featured and were inspired by existing products. 2) A die cut shape of a landmark from the featured city was placed at the top to identify the location. Fonts and layouts varied between cards to represent different cultures. 3) Research informed choices like equal text/image ratios and bright colors. Recipes featured world foods and were quick to make for busy professionals. 4) Existing vegetarian society cards provided examples of front-image

1. Recipe Card Evaluation
OLIVIA BOLT
1Creative Media Production 2013

2. Producing Print Based Media
2

3. Visual Language
How have you chosen to set out your designs and why? (Reference
layout, image/text ratio, busy/simplistic etc)
We chose to set our designs out by having the image large on the front of the card, along with the
name of the recipe and the city that the card represented. Then on the back we placed the
ingredients and the method. Looking at existing recipe cards, they had the image big on the front
which attracted you to look at the card. I thought this was a good idea for our cards so that’s what
drove us to put the image on the front. When we did our research over half of the people we asked
wanted equal text ration which was easy to read and was simple. When it came to making the card we
made sure that the card wasn’t busy and full of pictures and different patterns so we left a lot of space
around pictures and headings so it was easy to read and the the text and picture stood out. We made
sure that it was an equal text/image ration and had one large picture which was equivalent to the
writing on the back. This also made it easy to ready and made a lot of space so it was simple. We
chose to put most of the text on the back to spread the contents out over the two sides and not have
it to busy on the front that people will not pick it up in fear it was to complicated. Our card stands out
from the rest of the cards because of the theme we chose and regarding the layout we have used a
die cut and from each city we represented we chose a famous landmark from that city for example
the Sydney opera house and we put this at the top of the card so it stands out. This is really effective
because you don’t have to even read the the card and just by looking at the card you know what food
the card has on it because of the die cut.

4. Here is the die cut that we have
placed at the top of the card, In
the shape of a landmark from
that city.
This is an existing recipe card by
the vegetarian society and this
is where we go inspiration from
because they have just put an
image on the front and the text
all on the back which we
thought was a good idea
because the large picture
attracted people to come read
the card.

5. Visual Language
Discuss the contents of your final images and reflect upon decisions
made. (Content used- image/text/graphic, use of colour, original or stock
images. Compare to existing products.)
Through out our cards we have carefully picked colours and images that reflect upon the theme of
the card. The colours of each card represent that country and we have tried to pick the colours of
flag in which each city’s country has for example the New York card we used the American flag
colours of Blue white and red. These colours represent the city and we have done this with each
card. Each colour compliments each other and we made sure that each cards had different colours
but still stayed with the flag representation. The images we used were stock images because we
wanted them to look as professional as possible if we did own images we wasn’t sure how they
were going to turn out because we would have to make the dish which may have gone wrong. Also
we didn’t have the time or money to do eight dishes. The content used for the graphics follows the
city theme by having the flags of each country the city is in for example the English flag or the
French flag. This is effective because it shows what city the country is in for people who may not
know. The content of the image is showing what the dish is when prepared. We chose images that
had a high aperture this is so the food stood out like our cards stood out being bright and unique.
The context of the text that we used was all to inform and instruct the audience. It was the method
and ingredients. We made sure that it was easy to read and was spaced out and the titles were in
bold so the audience knew which piece of text was which. Existing products that we looked at used
colours to represent the theme of the work. for example a Christmas time recipe card by the
vegetarian society used white’s, purple’s and silvers which are Christmas colours and represent
snow and tinsel etc …

6. Taking inspiration from this card this is how we came up with the idea of having the colours
represent the country off the food. Existing cards used this technique and now we have used this
technique in our work. Some of the colours we had to change because they would be too similar
to other cards for example Australia and America. So for Australia we chose colours that you
associate with Australia.
This is the recipe card that we got
our colour and graphics
inspiration from. As you can see
from the card they have used
graphics linked to the theme to
put the text in we did this with
out work with the flags and
having the ingredients in the flag.
These are the graphics which we
used. We used flags to represent
the city.

7. Visual Language
Discuss the semiotics and connotations created from the content you have
included.(What meaning or suggestions are created from the
images/colours/designs you have used? You could reference how they were used
in products you look at during the project.)
The meanings that are created through our images is international food. We have used images that
show food from different countries that suggests that our cards follow a theme off cultures. We
have shown this by having a range of different images that include a verity of foods like haggis and
curry. The colours that we have used all serve a meaning. The meaning of the colours reflect the
country in which the city is in. The colours are either in the flag of that country or colours we
associate with each country. This suggest that the cards follow an international theme that we
wanted to reach to the audience. The colours are effective because you can not look at the title but
look at the colours and know what cuisine of food that the recipe card is showing. In previous
products that we looked at during the project colours that represented the theme were really
popular so this give us inspiration to make sure the colours have a meaning. The design of the card
play a massive part in the meaning of the cards. We have designed the card so it has a die cut top
where a landmark of the city is put. This is the first thing you see when looking at card so it was
important that we did something unique which the die cut is. When looking at existing products we
did not find any that used a die cut and had something at the top so to make our card stand out
from the rest we added the die cut of the landmarks to our design. The die cut suggests the city/
that we are trying to represent and this is an important aspect of the card because that is what our
cards are all about. The fonts symbolise the difference between each country. We used a different

8. This is the recipe card for
Edinburgh. As you can see we
have used White and Blue
because these colours are in the
flag of Scotland. The die cut at the
top is representing Edinburgh and
suggests that the card is showing
a food from Edinburgh/Scotland.
In my opinion I think that it is
really effective because we get
the message to our audience
through the colours, text and
images.
font on each card and this represents the different cultures of each city. This is
meaningful because our target audience can understand the different cultures we are
representing by the food that is on the card through the fonts.
As you can see from the two fonts
here. They are both a lot different
to represent each culture
individually.

9. Audiences
Create an audience profile of your chosen demographic
(Age, gender, psychographic, Geodemographics, NRS Social Grade, hobbies,
sexuality [if appropriate] etc)
Our audience that we have targeted our product to are young professionals living in this city from
the ages of 21-35. They are middle class people that have busy jobs so we have created quick and
easy recipe’s for them to follow after their work. The audience we have target this at are young
people that like to be adventurous with food and try food from different countries/cultures. That’s
why we have targeted the audience at a younger person rather than an older person because
younger people are most likely to try new food. In our questionnaire that we did at the start of our
project a lot of the younger people who filed out requested for different country cuisine like Indian
and American. This what drove us to chose our target audience as people from 21-35 because
younger people are seen more adventurous and live in the city with busy jobs. We made our cards
bright and fun looking to attract this audience who have lively and outgoing lives. Our cards reflect
the lives of these people. Young people like to travel and this is becoming a very popular thing so
having cards that represent all over the world from America to Paris will attract young people from
the ages of 21-35 because they may like the food of one of the countries like America but be
unable to eat it because their vegetarian so we have put in a substitute for meat. This is another
reason why are target audience are young people from the ages of 21-35. The audience will be in
city living because they will be young and want to be near everything so we have created the cards
to represent cities to reflect on our audience. This is effective because they make the cards
personal to the audience.

10. These are the type of looking people that we are targeting our
recipe. Young people with a outgoing perceptive on life. Young
professionals that live in the city and are really adventurous and
keen to try new things. These young adults need vegetarian
food that is easy to prepare and not time consuming from their
busy days. Which we a created for them.

11. Audiences
How have you constructed your work to appeal to this audience?
Include an annotated copy of an example of your work to help illustrate how you
have done this.
With are work we constructed it to make sure that it appealed to our audience that we are targeting
at. We did this by not making our cards boring and giving them an edge. When it came to the
construction off the cardwe put a die cut at the top of the card this appeals to our audience because
it stands out and catches their eye. As we are aiming at young adults who live in a city putting a
famous landscape which could be in their city at the top of the card makes it more personal to them
and appeals to them on a relating level. We put a large image on the front the card because this
makes it less boring for our audience to look at. As they are busy and outgoing young people we put
the image on the front to appeal to them to pick up the card as it’s not just a boring front page with a
lot of writing. Our work is constructed to appeal to our audience because we made sure it was
unique and out there to catch our busy target audiences eyes. That’s why we used bright colours and
made sure it did not look complicated and spaced everything out so it looked easy to follow.
Regarding the recipe's themselves we chose recipe’s that have world foods which you are able to
access in a more metropolitan city. This appeals to young people living in a city compared to more
rural living young people as they are able to access the ingredients. We got quick and easy recipe's
which appeal to the out audience as they do not take long to make as we targeting at young
professionals they will not have time to make dishes that take a long time. The font that we have
constructed for our recipe cards are entertaining and less mind-numbing to a young adult who is
outgoing instead of using a plain font like Ariel etc… We used a range of different fonts like young &
beautiful and each city has there own font. This again appeals to our audience because it makes the
card feel more personal to them by having their own font for their city.

12. The die cut on the top is constructed to
show the city in which the recipe is
from. We placed this at the top so it
stands out. It stands out being at the
top and gives the card an edge as it’s
not jut a meaningless rectangle shape.
We constructed the front of the card to
have different colours on to
compliment each other and that were
apart of the flag. This appeals to the
audience as it shows which country the
food is from and it’s interesting to look
at compared to looking at something
just black and white. Younger people
are more attracted to bright colours
The bottom of the card is
constructed to show the
audience that it is vegetarian
as we put the logo quite big
so the audience knew
straight away. This appeals
to our audience as they have
busy outgoing lives so will
want to know straight away
weather they can eat the
food or not.
We made sure that the main
information about the cooking/prep
time was all on the front so they can
see it straight away. This appeals to our
audience because they don’t have to
faff around looking for the information
it’s their straight in front of them for
them to get on with.
We constructed the image
on the front of the card to
interest our audience
visually. It appeals to our
target audience because it is
easy to look at and shows
what the food is which
attracts them to want to go
make it.
The font that we have
constructed for our recipe
cards are entertaining and
fun looking which appeals to
our audience as there young
people who live to have fun
and need entertaining as
they have busy lives.

13. Cultural context
What did you use as your design influences and why were they chosen?
(What existing media products influenced the final look of your work?)
When it came to the final design of our product we took a lot of influence from existing products and
the questionnaire. From existing products we studied the already recipe cards by the vegetarian
society and we saw that each card had the photo of the food on the front part of the card. We took
influence from this because we thought that the image off the food on the front of the card was really
effective. You was drawn to the image which made you want to know how to make it in which then
you would have to turn over the card. Another influence we got from our work was having writing
inside graphics we included this on our final design and had this on the back off the card. We took this
from a Christmas vegetarian society recipe card. Where they had writing in bauble graphics. From this
in our design we put the ingredients in a graphic of the countries flags. We thought that it was a really
good idea because it added extra detail to the card and made them more interesting to read. From
the same vegetarian society recipe card we took influence of the colours and how they have used
them. They used colours which were Christmas colours went with the theme of the Christmas themed
recipe card. Following this technique we used this with our recipe cards as we chosen colours that
linked to the countries/city theme of our recipe card’s. This was really effective because it represented
the counties and you could just look at the card and could tell what kind of food it was showing. We
took a lot of influence from the survey that we did. We took the answers of the design and took this
into consideration for our chosen design. A lot of people wanted equal text ration which we included
in our design. We made sure that there was the same text to images. We chose this because then we
are giving the audience something that they want. Another bit of our final design we got from the
questionnaire was the colours. The colours that people wanted were bright colours because it6
attracted them more than boring colours like black and white.

14. Following these high demands we added this to our final design and made sure that all the colours
were attractive and interesting to look at we chose this so we were giving our audience what they
wanted. All the dishes that we did were main courses so when it came to adding the recipe’s to the
final we made sure that they were all main courses because we were influenced by the high
demand of that course from our questionnaire. Again we chose to do a main course and be
influenced by this is so we give or audience something that they want obviously then our cards will
appeal to them more.
This is the Christmas vegetarian society existing
product that we got inspiration and we were
influenced by. As you can see the graphics are in
the baubles and the colours are silvers and
purples.
As you can see the main
image is big on the front
of the card and this is
what influenced us to put
our image on the front of
our card. It was a really
good idea to attract
attention from our
audience.

15. These are the questionnaire questions
that we got influenced by to add the
elements to our final design. As you can
see we followed them careful by adding
the highest demand to our final design.

16. Cultural context
Do vegetarian products have a specific design aesthetic and how does your
project reflect/contrast this? Why?

18. Finished products
Does your finished product reflect your initial plans? How? If there are any
differences, describe why changes were made.
(You can use visual examples of flat plans and finished products to illustrate this
Overall our finished product reflects our initial
plans. We tweaked it a bit and added extra
graphics and changed around text in places. With
our recipe card we kept the layout and the style
around the same. The die cut at the top hasn’t
changed and we kept that at the top like in our
initial plan. The front has been tweaked as we
kept the image in the same place and the title
and name of the dish but we added extra
graphics. We did this because it gave it more
detail and made the appearance look more
attractive. We added a strip that went behind the
picture and the flag of the country the city was in
at the bottom. The strip was colored and it broke
up the block colour at the top and the flag at the
bottom. We also made the flag fade using the
opacity slider. The changes we made to the front
looked a lot more interesting and professional
rather than the original design which was quite
boring and easy to complete.
This is our flat plan for the recipe card. As you can see
from the seconded picture we added the strip and the
flag. Which makes it a lot more interesting. We also
added extra information on the front to stick by the
brief.

19. The back of the card we made some radical changes. It was hard to fit all the ingredients and
methods on the back of the card without it looking crammed and all squashed. We edited the
design on the back and changed the layout of the card. We also added a graphic and
combined it with text by putting the text on to the graphic. We got influence to do this from
existing products of a vegetarian society Christmas recipe card. This gave the back of the card
more detail and we did this so it looked a lot more interesting to read off. The text all fit on the
back and designing it in this way allowed it to have space around the method and ingredients
so it was easy to read for the audience.
This is the flat plan of the back and
the final design off the back. As you
can see you moved the ingredients
and method around. We put them
both landscape across the page. We
just kept with the one large image
on the front as this then gave us
more space on the back to put the
ingredients and method without
them looking crammed. We also
added the dish and the city at the
top so our audience did not have to
turn over the card if they had
forgotten what the dish was.

20. Finished products
Does your finished product match what you were set in the brief? How?
Our finished product did match what we were set in the brief. All the way through the design and
production we made sure we stuck by the brief and made sure that we included what the brief
said. The brief instructed that it had to be an interesting and creative set of cards and we did this
buy adding a die cut to the top of the page so it looked interesting this was a creative an original
idea because we had not seen any previous existing products with this feature. We also put designs
on both front and back which is what the brief instructed. A clear theme was stated and we did this
by making our theme international cities and we followed this throughout the project making each
card about a city in the world. The brief said we had to include serving number, preparation time,
cooking time and vegan suitability at the start of the recipe. We added this information on the front
of the card at the bottom. We kept the method points as simple as possible, breaking down into
shorter sentences if a single method point involves more than one action. We went through and
took our unnecessary words that didn’t need to be in the sentence to make them more simple. On
the brief they said they wanted as List of all ingredients separately on a new line, in the order in
which they are used in the method and we did this and made sure they were one above the other.
As you can see we tried to match the brief so we were giving the vegetarian society what they
wanted. We followed the brief carefully and made sure we included everything what they
requested.

21. The creative and interesting design we
created with the die cut and the colour
scheme. We added graphics to make it
more interesting and informative to look
at.
Here is the serving information, cooking time, prep time
and if it is vegan friendly and this is what the brief we
instructed we needed to have somewhere on the card.

22. Finished products
How did the use of peer feedback help you in your production?
(Reference specific examples and their final outcome in finished product)
Overall I thought that peer feedback was very useful it told me weather my ideas were good enough
and I got an idea of what idea’s were more popular with other people that could potentially be my
audience. One of my popular idea’s was a student themed recipe card. Through the peer feedback I
was told that “The colours might not go with the feel of the food, but this can be chosen when
images for the recipes have been taken.” With this I thought it may be hard to chose colours that
represent the theme because the colour scheme could be a lots of varied colours. However the
feedback from this idea was positive for example “I like the fun and modern layout, it makes it
interesting and more appealing to a young teen audience.” This made me decide that the city idea
was the best idea because I got really positive feedback out of all of my idea’s for example “This is
my favourite because it has a lot of potential to be really creative and there is a lot you can do with
the design of the card. It is full of culture and you can be really creative with the food and the
different countries flags etc…” This lead me and my team to believe that there is a lot of potential to
this idea and we realised that we could be really creative with this idea. The peer feedback showed
us that we can be really creative with the cultures lie the brief wanted and there was not any cards
like this in any other existing products.So this is why we added t6he die cut to the final design of our
card. The peer feedback had impact on our final outcome because we was able to discard of the
ideas that had more negatives than positives for example for a vegetarian dinner party cards-”
Target it to a specific gender, the cards would be complicated for people to follow and you do not
have enough cards for a variety of courses and dishes.” From the negative peer feedback we were
able to rule out the bad ideas and look in more detail at the more better ones.

23. Finished product
Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your final product regarding its
technical qualities.
Use box below for text or page space to include an annotated copy of your work
to help illustrate how you have done this.
Reference what you like and dislike about the work with consistent reference to
correct terminology of tools/effects used. Reference existing products.
When creating our recipe cards we used Photoshop. I liked working in Photoshop because it
allowed us to have a lot of freedom when designing and creating the card. By changing colours and
we could use text etc… Regarding our final product the technical qualities of it had some strength
and weaknesses. The strengths of our final product were: We were able to layer the features in
Photoshop this worked well with the graphics and the text being on top of the graphics. We were
able to create layers and put the graphic of the flag on top of a white base. Then with the opacity
we lowered it and the white base came through to give the flag a faded effect. This was a strength
because it was really effective and the text stood out more on the faded flag. Another strength was
the ability to cut out the graphic at the top. We used the polygon-lasson tool were we were able to
cut around the image and remove it from its background then copy and paste it on to the card and
change the colouring to blend it in with the rectangular background. This was a really easy and
effective way to make our work look work professional and it made it neat. What I like about the
work is that using the shape tool ,polygon-lasson and the text tool we were able to create our work
in a simple way that was quick and easy. We were able to create the design in the time that we
were given. What I dislike about the work is that the text tool was quite complicated to work with.
When lining up the text it would not move and it took a while to get it to how we wanted it.

24. Another element that I disliked about the technical side of our work was the colour choosing. The
red that we wanted was to bright on Photoshop it made our work look tacky. Regarding the fact it
downgraded our work we had to go forward with choosing another colour to make it look better.
This too us a while to chose the colour.
The circles at the bottom we
made with the shape tool.
This was easy and we were
able to put borders around
them to make them stand
out. A weakness to using the
shape tool for the bits of
information was that it was
frustrating to put the text in
the middle. It was quite fiddly
to put the text in so small so
we have to solve this by
zooming really far into the
circles. This took time to do
this to each circle to get it to
our standards.

25. When creating the
base of our design
that included the
background we used
the shape tool to
create a rectangle. We
also used this tool for
the strip across the
bottom. The
strengths of using this
tool was you was able
to get a perfect shape.
That was all equal this
made our work look
very professional. We
were able to place the
strip down and it be
perfect which made
our work look clean
cut. The weaknesses
of using this tool was
that there was not
much freedom to be
able to change the
shape if we needed to.
There was not a verity
of shapes to chose
from .

26. This is a very useful tool we
used to create the faded
effect of the graphics
following existing products
with this technique. I liked
working with this tool. I was
able to be in charge of much
graphics could be faded.
This is the polygon-lasson
tool. Where we dragged it
around the skyline graphic to
create the die cut. I really
liked using this tool and it
had the strengths of being
very easy to work with. The
work could be completed
quicker than using a tool like
colour range

27. Using the stroke tool we around the image and gave it a border. This was really effective because it made the
picture stand out and give it a neat and professional look to the finish. In our final design we added this last
to neaten it off. It was a really easy tool to use and we set it at a width of 12. I liked working with this tool
because it was really effect to our image for our work. This tool did not have any weaknesses. It was a really
quick and easy tool to work.

28. Finished product
Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your final product regarding its
aesthetical qualities.
Use box below for text or page space to include an annotated copy of your work
to help illustrate how you have done this. Reference what you like and dislike
about the work with consistent reference to correct terminology. You can
reference existing products here and compare your work to them.
Regarding of the aesthetical qualities of the final product. I really liked the end design and the look it
presented. The colours are a main aspect of the look of the product. We chose to you bright colours
and these made our card look bright, happy, and stand out. The bright colours make our card

31. Finished products
What skills/knowledge have you gained/developed in this project? How could
these be applied in future practice?

33. Production process
Do you believe your work is creative and technically competent? Why?
(Reference specific examples (use images if this will help) of where you believe
your work is particularly visually or technically impressive. Reference
professionally productd work and compare your products to them)

35. Production process
How effectively did you manage your time?
(Could you have used time more wisely? Did a particular aspect of the project
take longer than expected? Did you complete everything on schedule?)

36. Production process
If you could repeat the process what would you do differently?

38. Working to a brief
38

39. Constraints
What constraints did you encounter and how did you consider/avoid them?
Legal:

40. Regulatory:

41. Financial:

42. Management
How did you work as part of a group?
(Did you lead the project? What parts of the project did you take charge of? Did
you enjoy working as part of a group? Why?)

43. Management
How important is communication when working in a group?
(Use specific examples from working in a group on this project)

44. Management
How important is communication when working in a group?
(Use specific examples from working in a group on this project)

45. Management
What have you learnt about working in a group and how will you apply this to
future practice?