Prototyping design kitchen : food design in practice and in principle

Summary: This thesis investigates how visual communication can be used to celebrate, discuss and brand humans’ playful and precarious interactions with food. Cooking up a niche visual design practice driven by food is a challenging task because food experiences are complex and constantly evolving. For someone who comes from a rich, diverse and geographically vast country like India, there is a scope for abundant inspiration but with a set of challenges. The existing discourse around food lacks literacy — specifically visual literacy. There is constant ‘food exchange’ happening globally but the rapid scale of that has led to lost narratives and mixed up meanings. This thesis explores a design practice that reflects on humanity’s deep connections with food. It’s a deeply personal practice that promotes really seeing the man-made wonder that food is. It aims to create a body of visual work that enlightens, educates and entertains. Concentrated communication design-based studio explorations, on a personal and commercial scale, inform the exercise to represent my interactions with food visually. My design research methods include photo analysis, case studies, observation and personal reflection through making. The thesis sets guiding principles/systems to capture what design can do for food and vice-versa. My studio projects are various explorations of works to revitalize our connection to the foods we eat. The research also creates tangible experiences out of edible artifacts to reflect on culture, culinary and nostalgic themes.