OUGD405 Studio Brief 1 - Design Boards

OUGD405 Studio Brief 1 - Design Boards

OUGD405 Edible Type - Production

OUGD405 Edible Type - Production

This was our final outcome, overall I think we tried our best and although it did come out a bit like a train wreck, the ideas and concept is still there. Afterwards when we tasted them I found the cupcakes were nice but the cookies were quite hard and the chocolate moulds didn't taste the best. But I'm not disheartened, I think we produced what the brief asked of us and we tried our best so overall I'm happy with our outcome. 

These were the winners of the edible type, the 'Georgia Bread' was first place, 'Futura Falafel' was the second runner up and the '&' was the third runner up.

OUGD405 Edible Type - Development

OUGD405 Edible Type - Development

We started off by creating the chocolate cups by melting chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan with boiling water, then dipping the half blown up balloons into the bowl of melted chocolate, so that half of them is covered in chocolate. We found that when doing this we had to wait for the chocolate to cool for a bit otherwise the heat of the chocolate burst the balloon After testing a few times, we found that the chocolate had to be at a warm temperature, and they worked quite well. However, once they were cool, we then came back and tired to take the balloons out, which resulting in the chocolate cracking and breaking, therefore they did not work very well.

Next we made the cupcakes using a simple mixture. We weighed two eggs and then used this weight to measure out the flour, sugar, and butter as well. Putting the cake mixture into silicone cake cases, we put them in the oven for 20 minutes or so until cooked. We mis-timed the cakes a bit however, so some of them were a little burnt. We next made the cookie mixture, using a simple recipe off the internet, which used the same ingredients as the cupcakes but in different measures. We added a bit of melted chocolate to the cookies as well and also some chocolate drops as well. We then rolled small balls of cookie dough into balls and placed them into a baking tray, then put them in the oven to cook for about 10-15 minutes.

Once the cupcakes were cooked we left them to cool whilst mixing up buttercream icing. When the cupcakes were cool enough to be iced, we transferred the buttercream icing into a icing pipe and piped the icing onto the cupcakes, covering the whole top of the cupcakes. We initially tried quite a large nozzle, however this made the icing far too thick for the size of the cupcake, and used up way too much icing as well. We settled for a smaller, more star like nozzle instead. After icing all the cupcakes, we then decorated them using a selection of christmas themes sprinkles, including candy canes, christmas trees and holly leaves.

To decorate the cookies once they had cooled also, we melted some more milk chocolate on the oven and the spooned the melted chocolate onto the cookies, so that it drizzled down the sides and covered all of the top of the cookies. We then decorated the cookies using the same christmas sprinkles as we used for the cupcakes. We put the cookies in the fridge to help set the chocolate.

Overall our final production wasn't successful but none of us are bakers and we'll know for next time not to work with chocolate to such an extent and try something else. However we had fun making and tasting these so I'm not bothered about how they turned out in the end, we stuck to the brief and had fun which is what the Edible type brief is all about.

OUGD405 Edible Type - Research

OUGD405 Edible Type - Research

Looking at other year's outcomes was really useful research to us as it really got our ideas flowing. This contributed to the idea generation of our Edible advent calendar and helped to give us ideas to include with it, such as the chocolate cups and using icing/chocolate to create letters and numbers which will then set and can be placed on our production.

OUGD405 Edible Type - Idea Generation

OUGD405 Edible Type - Idea Generation

We created a mind map to start off our initial ideas which we found useful as we struggled with ideas to begin with. Our initial idea was to make a gothic castle out of swiss roll and use a gothic typeface to with it, using the similar techniques as these below. However when thinking about it we knew we were restricted with time and our baking skills, so we re-thought our ideas about what we could do. 

We then thought of something festive and came up with an edible advent calendar, thinking about chocolate pops and creating pops with typefaces on them. We then realised our restrictions to that as well and thought of things we can make - cupcakes and cookies. We decided that although this is simple we can bake them so we thought about incorporating these with an advent calendar so it would still be unique. We then thought back to the chocolate pops and thought about creating a ballon mould to place the cookies and cupcakes in and over the top of them with a number on the top, so it would still be similar to an advent calendar but everything would be edible. In addition we could add numbers in a typeface to incorporate typefaces to the edible calendar.  

OUGD405 Edible Type - Brief

OUGD405 Edible Type 

We have the task of creating an edible letterform or glyph using shop bought or hand made food ingredients. We can work either independently or as part of a group, and our final outcome must be supported by a range of visual investigation consisting of design sheets and notebooks. It must be produced in a sanitary environment and is judged on it's outside and inside characteristics. This is a contest between all three years of the Graphic Design degree, and the contestants are judged by our tutors and the principle as well, with the best one awarded a prize, and two runners up mentioned. These are examples of prior years work and gave us a good insight into what we could do to start off our initial ideas.