BRIEF - To produce a piece of edible type that represents a letterform or a glyph.
I have started some initial ideas based off my brainstorm for 'edible type'. My first idea is a concept based off the Helvetica vs Arial after my research into the two. The idea being combing different layers of food to achieve the two letters that are very similar. The ideas I have at this stage are thinking about food that could possibly work as a transparent layer to see the slight difference in the two. So far I thought about ideas such as cling film, jelly, ice and a thin sheet of toffee. All these food will be quite difficult to work with but through experimentation will see which will be the best to work with:
Another idea I have thought of is contrasting letterforms based on their origins. I thought of either looking into Stone, Sable, Wood etc or the categories of type i.e Gothic, Roman etc. After looking into my research the best food for the different fonts have been biscuit or bread, after seeing this I would create my own out of biscuit or cakes as they seem to the most secure/strongest food:
My other concept would be based on typography being a puzzle, as whether you think about type as a language or as a subject, it can be confusing to do i.e a puzzle. I have then based a couple of ideas making the type into a jigsaw that would be created using biscuits. I would use biscuits/cookies again due to them begin a solid and secure food when you bake them. I am not sure whether this would be as interesting as the other too but may bake a small version to see what a finished outcome could look like:
As my first concept was to create the in the Arial vs Helvetica, I have began to construct my edible type. I have decided to use jelly as I think this type of food and the translucently of it, will hopefully show my two layers and the difference within the letter successfully:
Once my jelly was set, I started crafting the Helvetica R. I have tried to reference the letter as much as possible with the curve on the leg, which I feel has come out as successfully as possible considering the media. Next I will try to craft the bowl of the R but as I am not steady will a knife or scalpel will have difficulty in achieving a correct curve:
Once I crafted the bowl of the R I had my first attempt. I think this has not come out as I would have hoped but represents the letter to a certain degree. I have decided not to cut out the counter until I have both layers on top of each other. This is to try to get as much strength with the jelly as possibly as it is going to be difficult to move into place once layered. I think I will also achieve a better resemblance once layered. I do not think this outcome is going to come out as planned, as already my letter is out of proportion. I will possibly have to change my concept to one of my previous ideas.
As my first attempt at the Helvetica R was not successful enough, I quickly cut out another letter R to try and practice moving the jelly on top of one another, this is why the green R has no accuracy what so ever:
As I anticipated, the jelly was difficult to move and keep the form of the letter. I tried moving the letter with a fish slice but as the jelly was too thin, it broke into pieces. For my next attempt I am going to double the quantity of jelly to achieve a thicker consistency to see if that will help keep the letterform together:
For my second attempt I doubled the batch of jelly to see if that would keep the letterform together. I also placed cling film underneath the batch to help with moving the letter once cut. However once the jelly was set and due to the cling film, the jelly had bubbles in. Not only did it have bubbles in, but the jelly had leaked through the cling film and so the jelly still was too thinner a layer. With hindsight, I should of made the batch of jelly with less water to create a thicker consistency and maybe the jelly would not have leaked.
I have tired the cling film with both jellies but this is still what leaked through:
However, due to me doubling up the batch there was still a thicker constancy even with the leak also because of the cling film it was still easy to transfer across to try and cut out a letter again. I started cutting out the letter R again which was working more successfully than the first attempt:
I have cut out a mediocre R to try and represent the Arial layer. As it is usable, hopefully the Helvetica layer will be more successfully in terms of accuracy to achieve a usable edible type:
I made yet another mistake with the second layer of jelly, which was extremely disappointing. When I was transferring the jelly out of the dish it folded in on itself which made the jelly split. However, it still has enough flat space to cut out a letterform:
With the left over space, I cut out the second R, trying to achieve the form of Helvetica which it is not doing, due to me not having the accuracy when cutting out the jelly. Also I have chosen the wrong colour jelly. I thought lime would have the best translucency, however it is too light to see the letterform. I am still attempting to layer this on my first letter but do not think it is going to be successful to use:
This is my final two layers together, it looks completely un-edible and messy. It has not achieved what I had set out to create but was still a interesting concept to experiment with. I also chose the wrong colour of jelly as you cannot even see the green jelly layer as it is too translucent. I have decided to not try out this concept again as due to the timescale and the jelly taking too long to set. With hindsight and if I were to try this again, I would choose better colour jelly but also made the batch of jelly with less water to create a thicker consistency. I could have also tried this out with different food like cake, which would have been stronger and a easier media to work with.
As my jelly concept has not worked out I am going to attempt to create my other initial idea of puzzle type, which could create any type of letterform once put together. I found a gingerbread recipe I was interested in baking as I think biscuits will be a strong food to work with:
The first batch of dough once made:
Once I had my first dough I started cutting puzzle shapes out to try and represent a letter:
While I was experimenting with this concept, I also tried out a solid T to see if it would be more effect to cut the puzzle shapes after the mixture has been cooked to achieve a more accurate jigsaw. I also cut out pieces to put together after they had been cut:
The gingerbread once cooked came out okay as it was my first attempt, however as the recipes includes bicarbonate of soda, the pieces came out slightly too big, as the soda helps the biscuits to rise. Because of this the jigsaw pieces did not fit together well enough to show a letterform as a jigsaw. I am going to try this recipe out again but leave out the bicarbonate of soda out to see if that improves the recipe. Another mistake that I have found from this first batch is, I will need to roll the dough thinner to create better jigsaw pieces as again the thicker the dough the more the pieces will not fit together.
I also tried out the 'T' to see which ways round would be the best for the jigsaw, in cooking both ideas at the same time I now know to cut the pieces out first rather than the letter. This is because due to the surface area of the letter and how big it is, the surface has cracked, which is okay just for eating but if I was to present this, it would not look visually effective. Also again due to the soda, the T has expanded too much which has made it lose it's shape.
With my first batch I had halved the recipe just for experimenting. With my second and final batch I created the whole recipe. The taste because of this was far too sweet, the recipe states two tablespoons of treacle which I feel it did not need. I knew before I started cooking the taste and texture was not going to be successful because of this.
What I had learnt from the first batch was to make the dough much thinner so the pieces would fit together more like a jigsaw, because of this the puzzle pieces were coming out a lot more neater:
As I am not successful in baking or cooking my first biscuits in my final batch came out burnt. The taste because of the treacle tasted far too sweet and sickly and were un-edible due to how solid and burnt they were.
However they still managed to fit together properly like a typographic jigsaw, which was my aim to start with. They could still fit together and create any letterform which in that sense makes the concept work but the culinary side is more than a disappointment. I am going to re-bake the rest of the batch to get less burnt puzzle pieces which hopefully still work as a jigsaw.
Finals and Evaluation
These are my final attempt at edible type. The culinary side has not worked and has been more then un-successful in both foods I tried to prepare. However I feel the concept and ideas to both biscuit and jelly are interesting and if were created successfully could have been visually effective. I think the jigsaw pieces worked well in terms of creating a letterform and the fact the actually worked and fitted together but the taste was extremely unappealing.
No comments:
Post a Comment