Tom Cooney - Digital Designer
Katie is a very talented home cook who appeared on BBC 1’s Best Home Cook television programme, eventually reaching the quarter finals. She has an active Instagram account where she documents her culinary journey and posts her own recipes for her many followers. Above all, she aims to create and share recipes that are simple and easy for all to follow.
Katie approached me shortly before the start of the series as she wanted to make her online presence “look a bit more professional” in anticipation of the extra exposure the programme would bring her.
Firstly, Katie wanted a website where she would be able to display her best recipes in an easily searchable way, as well as writing the occasional blog post. She also wanted her social channels to be instantly recognisable as her own.
She had always insisted that simplicity would be key when it came to her website. She didn’t want it to feel too removed from what she was already doing on her Instagram account but rather that it should just add an extra layer to what she was already doing. Being a home cook it was also important that it portrayed her as a person rather than a business. She especially didn’t want any “fancy” features.
It was always going to be important to communicate Katie’s friendly, no-nonsense and “anyone can do it” approach. Her ideas about bringing ease and simplicity to cooking were also very appealing, so I concentrated on placing these values at the heart of her visual identity.
I achieved this by creating a “Katie” character that could be incorporated into a logo as well as being used as a profile image for her social channels. The idea being to make the character (her) the recognisable element of her brand. The logo / character was then produced in various formats including an animated version for use as an intro to recipes and Instagram stories. We both felt that the finished identity “felt like her”, while at the same time being professional, friendly and approachable.
I then designed and built a very simple website to display her recipes in an Instagram influenced feed that features a nice photo of each dish that clicks through to a simple recipe page. We both agreed that the easiest way to sort through the recipe posts was with a basic search facility alongside a broad (main ingredient) filter. The blog works in much the same way, only minus the filter as this is more of an "occasional feature".
