OUGD405: Edible Type

I initially began my practical forms of edible type by purchasing letter cutters:

My idea was to use cake as my bottom layer and to write a word in a particular colour. I then planned on putting black icing onto the word white to form and show the research I did into the stroop effect. 

However I found that when using these letter cutters on cake the substance became stationary within the cutter and therefore I tried this technique with using flora (as pictured above).

These didn't go brilliantly well even though they improved from my initial attempts- these were still incredibly delicate (due to the small cutters) and the consistency of the cake was 'crumbly'.

I therefore tried these cutters with melted chocolate and also jelly.

However I found that because these cutters were so small the chocolate became stuck once set, I also tried this by cooling a large block of chocolate and pressing the cutter into it- however it created the same problem. Jelly was a nightmare to work with as its consistency is incredibly difficult to create a letterform, it isn't naturally a stable food substance, my efforts with this were incredibly disappointing and therefore I found that my idea of using the strop effect wouldn't work. 

Therefore due to the lack of time I decided to create something more simple by involving the game of hangman I know of from childhood. I decided I wanted to use cake as my "base" and topped it with chocolate to create a smooth surface to work with (darker belgium chocolate to create a greater contrast with icing).

I initially tried working with words that would link to myself for instance by experimenting with the word zebra and trying to create zebra print with black and white icing. However I found this detail incredibly difficult and therefore tried to just replicate hangman by using the word "type". 

I'm not overly impressed with the final execution of my work because I found incredibly difficult working with edible substances. I don't usually work with baking or other forms of edible substances for graphic design, however it was an insight into how intricate edible type is and if developed properly and allowing for a lot of time, the final pieces can be outstanding as I saw in the end of the competition, some of the ideas that people used and created were incredibly innovative. The final three being a typewriter made from cake and icing, the second was screen printed chocolate and the winner created "Gill Sandwich". This brief has been a learning experience as I found that people who worked as a group did better and created more original ideas and a larger amount of work in such a short space of time.