The Kitchen Diaries Nigel Slater

The Kitchen Diaries Nigel Slater

Published by Fourth Estate, 2005 (Hardback)

Designed by Sam Blok

Photographs by Jonathan Lovekin

The Kitchen Diaries is Nigel Slater’s eighth book, written as a diary, it is aimed at the home cook with seasonal and simple recipes with commentaries by the author. The book is based on a simple grid with seemingly simple typography - using one typeface, Baskerville, only - and layout. It is printed on uncoated paper which feels good to the touch, this tactile quality is heightened by the cover details. Photographs and text are in balance - each has equal hierarchical importance.

Compared to Real Good Food and Real Cooking, The Kitchen Diaries is unique in that the cover and the interior share a common design identity, the book was designed as a whole rather than an inside section with separate cover. The paperback version, published in 2007, has an updated cover but it still shares an identity with the hardback edition and the inside of the book: Baskerville is used with the author’s name being the dominant element and the title of the book coming second. The text is printed over a photograph - that does not appear in the book - of a table set for lunch that was obviously from the same session as the Christmas Day photograph. This has a remarkably different feel to the original hardback edition - the dominant colours being whites, greys, blacks and muted browns.

Front Cover

The book has a lavishly produced and complex cover: it is a hardback, covered in black book cloth with a half-image wrap covering over just over two thirds of the front and back. The exposed cloth at the spine and at the margin is blocked in sliver foil with Nigel Slater’s name arranged vertically with the title of the book in much smaller text at the foot. The author’s name is clearly the dominant element. The image wrap shows a photograph, by Jonathan Lovekin, of a close-up of rustic-looking apples, slightly irregular in shape and size. The photograph is shown at full bleed on three sides and is finished with a matt laminate, creating a contrast of textures with the book cloth. Other elements include head and tailbands and a ribbon book marker in a colour that matches the pale green colour used on the back cover.

The photograph shows the apples in close up complete with fresh-looking apple tree leaves suggesting that these apples have been freshly picked - this is somewhat contradicted by the darkness of the image suggesting not the gold of autumn but the half-light of winter. The dominant colours are dark reds, rich greens and shadowy blacks. The book stands in contrast to Real Good Food and Real Cooking where the dominant colours are warm oranges, browns and yellows.

Inside Pages

The book is 17 cm by 24 cm and is printed in full colour on cream uncoated paper which is identified in the colophon as "Munken Pure 130gsm." The book is divided into sections, each dealing with a month of the year and the seasonal foods of that time. ‘A Note on the Type’ tells us that “This book is set in Berthold Baskerville 10.5/12.5. The typeface was originally designed by John Baskerville (1706-1775) in the 1750s.” This note and the note that follows about the paper stock suggests that the book is aimed, not only at cooks, but at visually aware readers interested in the minutiae of design. Each section opens with a double page spread with a full bleed photograph on the left and a list of recipes on the right set in bold Baskerville with the name of the month set in larger bold Baskerville arranged vertically. These pages are perhaps the least satisfying in the book: the photographs of flowers and plants, presumably taken in Slater’s garden, are too obvious signifiers of the seasons and the typography, compared to the rest of the book is unresolved with the list of recipes with no page references serving no real purpose.

The rest of the book is much more resolved and is based on a simple symmetrical layout of two columns: a wide column for diary entries and recipes and a narrower column on the outside for dates and edited highlights from the diary. The text is set in Baskerville in one size with bold Baskerville used in the outside column and for the titles of the recipes. Photographs are placed throughout at a consistent size within the margins of the page. This is a design that is simple but refined and, for the reader, easy to navigate (aside from the list of recipes in the opening sections).

The photographs were taken by Jonathan Lovekin and, in common with Slater’s other books are taken in a similar style: close-up, little or no backgrounds, saturated colours and with rough and burnt edges on the food; a photograph of roasted butternut squash could have been taken form the same session as the photograph of squash on the cover of Real Cooking published ten years before. Interestingly, the entry for Christmas Day shows a photograph of a room with a table set for six people - an interior detail that does not often appear in Slater’s books.

In this book the photographs and the text share equal billing: this is a book for reading as well as for looking at. The recipes are very simply laid out and although, arguably, they are difficult to consult whilst cooking, Slater’s recipes are generally simple enough to understand after a single reading. If you are at all familiar with Slater’s recipes then it is easy to see that there is an element of recycling going on - the roasted butternut squash is a good example - I would argue that the tone of this book is informal and conversational, reflected in the simplicity of the design. Imposing a complicated recipe hierarchy and structure in this book would not work: his recipes are passed on like a conversation with a friend.

Real Cooking Nigel Slater

Real Cooking Nigel Slater

Published by Michael Joseph, 1997 (Hardback)

Designed by uncredited

Photographs by Georgia Glynn Smith

Real Cooking is Nigel Slater’s fifth book, it is aimed at the home cook with simple, clear recipes and enlightening commentaries by the author. The book is based on a simple grid with some elements (the chapter openings for example, breaking out of the grid) Photographs are the dominant element and represent a shift to the visual from his previous book, Real Good Foodwhich is predominantly text-based. There are three photographs of the author and details of his hands making food; at this stage, although the author had achieved fame as the Good Food Awards Media Personality of the Year, he was primarily known as a journalist, known better for his words than his face.

Typographically, the book is more sophisticated and consistent than Real Good Food: Baskerville is used throughout in different sizes with a condensed light grotesque for recipe titles, ingredients and running feet. As with Real Good Food Baskerville has perhaps been chosen because if its schoolbook authority and the warmth that it projects, particularly at larger point sizes. The grid is broken up with the positioning of photographs which, although are lined up to the grid, are placed in an almost intuitive manner creating an informal, playful atmosphere that reflects Nigel Slater’s ideas about cooking and eating.

As with Real Good Food and other commercial books, the cover has a different identity from the interior. Covers are often updated with the content remaining the same: this is fairly common with novels, particularly when a novel is turned into a film, the cover is changed to show a scene from the film. In Nigel Slater’s case, it appears that there have been three different covers for Real Cooking: the second, published in 1999, shows Nigel Slater eating goat’s cheese on sour dough toast while the most recent, published in 2006, shows a sketchy illustration of kitchen equipment and ingredients hanging from a rack. This is the opposite of what Jost Hochuli calls ‘total design’, a unified plan that treats jacket and the interior as one to create an overall impression. I will do some further research to see if the interior of the new editions has been updated as well as the covers.

Front Cover

The cover shows a photograph, by Georgia Glynn Smith, of a close-up of baked apples. The photograph is shown at full bleed with an extra bold sans-serif type printed over the top. The author’s name in title case takes up the width of the book and is reversed out of the photograph; the title of the book, in titlecase and in bold italic sans-serif, is placed at much smaller size and is printed over the top of the photograph in a blue-grey. There are no other elements on the front cover.

The photograph shows the baked apples very close up and with a shallow depth of field - the parts of the photograph that are in focus are the shine on the skin of the apple and the golden flesh within; the edge of the baking dish - with burnt-on bits - is just visible. As with Slater’s Real Good Food, the photograph reinforces the idea of ‘real food’ by presenting food that is the opposite of complicated food, positioning the book in the domestic sphere.

The dominant element on the cover is the photograph of the baked apple and the author’s name; the title of the book is third in the hierarchy of cover elements. The dominant colours are warm yellows, oranges and browns with a smattering of rich blacks.

Inside Pages

The book is 19 cm by 24.5 cm and is printed in full colour on white coated paper. The book is divided into chapters, each dealing with different kinds of food: fish, meat, vegetables etc. The book is set in Baskerville. Each chapter has an opening section that uses Baskerville at a larger point size than in the rest of the book, justified in a single column with a chapter heading in larger Baskerville printed in grey. Following the opening section are the commentary and recipes - these are set in Baskerville but use a different layout and margins: a two column grid with a wide central column for the method and commentary and a narrower column on the outside for ingredients which are set in a light condensed sans-serif. Titles and running feet are set in the same light condensed grotesque with page numbers at the foot, aligned to the outside of the wider column, set in Baskerville.

Full colour photographs, concentrating - with extreme close-ups - on the food with little or no background are used throughout the book. The photographs were taken by Georgia Glynn Smith, according to Nigel Slater: “they are totally natural - not set up or contrived in the typical way of food photographs - Georgia simply followed me around my home kitchen taking her photographs while I cooked.” Some images are presented as full page, full bleed, others are fitted at a smaller size within the grid of the page. Chapter openings use full page black and white photographs at full bleed, taken in a similar manner, with large headings reversed out in white. Occasional black and white photographs at full page, full bleed, punctuate the book.

The photographs are the dominant element in the book. Not every recipe in the book has a corresponding photograph while some recipes are presented with several images. The dominant colours in the photographs are golden ochres, oranges, browns, reds and rich blacks with occasional sprinklings of green. Despite Slater’s claims for ‘naturalness’ the photographs look almost hyperreal with saturated colours and an almost Photoshopped shine on some of the ingredients, the close-ups - and sometimes unusual camera angles - adding to this unreal effect. Often there are pairings of photographs of before and after - cooked and uncooked ingredients - adding to the effect that this is food that can be cooked at home, by anyone.

Real Good Food Nigel Slater

Real Good Food Nigel Slater

Published by Fourth Estate, 1995 (Paperback), 1993 (Hardback)

Cover design by React, photograph by Kevin Summers

Illustrations by Juliet Dallas Conte

Typeset by Type Technique, London W1

Real Good Food is a book aimed at the home cook with simple, clear recipes and enlightening commentaries by the author. It is Nigel Slater’s fourth book, published in 1995 when he was food editor of the Observer and cookery writer of the year. Visually, the book presents mixed messages: on the cover you have the contrast of the burnt, rough and ready food and the formality of the centrally alligned uppercase sans-serif type; inside there is a contrast between the informality of some elements - the illustrations, the ranged left lists of ingredients, the use of similar but different typefaces - and the symmetrical, justified formal aspects of other typographic elements. The overall effect, I would argue, is friendly but with a hint of authority suggesting that, at this stage in his career, Nigel Slater understood what kind of image he wanted to cultivate through his cooking (relaxed, friendly, simple and easy) but, as he was not a household name, he still needed to develop a sense of trust in the reader hence the authoritative elements of the design.

Front cover

The cover shows a photograph, by Kevin Summers, of a close-up of roasted butternut squash. The photograph is shown at full bleed with a narrow black strip at the bottom that contains the author’s name in a red uppercase serif typeface. The title of the book, in uppercase serif, is printed over the top of the photograph in white and is embossed. A strapline at the foot of the page, under the author’s name states ‘cookery writer of the year’.

The photograph shows the squash burnt around the edges, on a baking tray, with burnt spices and shiny with olive oil. The photograph reinforces the words ‘real food’ by presenting food that is the opposite of processed food and, in its simplicity, positions the book in the domestic sphere rather than the sophisticated food one might find prepared in a restaurant.

The dominant element on the cover is the photograph of the squash and the title of the book; the author’s name is third in the hierarchy with the strapline being the least dominant element. The dominant colours are warm yellows and browns and rich blacks.

Inside Pages

The book is 19 cm by 21 cm and is printed black on white matt coated paper which comes as a surprise after the richness of the cover. The layout is based on a simple two-column grid: sentence case Perpetua bold is used for headings which are contained a tinted text box; Baskerville (?) is used for the body text, uppercase Perpetua regular is used for chapter headings. The book contains no photographs and is illustrated with black and white reproductions of etchings of food. Chapter headings are aligned centrally on the page creating a formal, authoritative sense of symmetry which is slightly at odds with the ranged left recipe titles, ingredient lists and the playful placing of the illustrations.

Each chapter of the book contains several elements (in order of dominance): A chapter heading alligned centrally in uppercase, letterspaced regular Perpetua in a grey text box; A commentary set in justified Garamond at a slightly larger size than the recipes with drop caps; Recipes -title set in Perpetua bold, method set justified in Garamond, ingredients set ranged left in smaller Perpetua bold and indented very slightly rom the left margin; Illustrations of varying sizes arranged playfully within the text; Running heads aligned centrally, set in a smaller version of the chapter headings; Pagination is at the foot of the page and is aligned centrally, set in a smaller version of the chapter headings.