GABY’S LATIN AMERICAN KITCHEN

Timeline : May 2021 - May 2022

Role : Illustrator, Designer, Art Director

It was a joy to work with chef Gaby Melian to create Gaby’s Latin American Kitchen for America’s Test Kitchen Kids! Gaby is from Argentina and the cookbook is designed to share foods that she’s learned about and loved from around Latin America. A Spanish glossary, fun personal stories, and a peek into Gaby’s own kitchen make this book a delicious win for all young chefs and their families! From desayuno (breakfast), to meriendas (snacks), to cena (dinner), to postre (dessert), you’ll be a pro in no time.

Collaborating with ATK Creative Director John Torres, we designed the cover to be colorful, playful, and full of food and personality- just like Gaby herself! After the remote shoot to get the cover photography, I had a blast illustrating on top to add kitchen tools and empanada friends to interact with Gaby! Because illustration was featured heavily throughout the book, it was important to bring that element and the whimsy it involved into the cover. We went through many drafts before we landed on the final cover.

Almost every recipe included a spot illustration featuring Gaby, Pucho (Gaby’s dog), or ingredients that reflected the recipe. I loved getting to integrate my work on design and illustration into fully realized spreads.

One of my favorite parts of the book was creating full page illustrations to accompany sidebars. This drawing was inspired by the cows of Argentina.

Argentina is often associated with three things: soccer (we call it fútbol en español!), tango, and . . . cows. Cows? You might be imagining cows roaming freely everywhere, right? But when you grow up on the seventh floor of an apartment building like I did, the closest you’ll ever come to a cow is at a fair, behind a fence! For many years, Argentina was the world’s top consumer of beef per capita. And the dairy production is pretty great, too. After all, good butter comes from good cream.

Working on the chapter openers was a very collaborative process. I began with an initial illustration of a recipe from each chapter, which Julie, our incredible Art Director, used to inform the tablescape photographed for the opener. After the photos were shot, we refined each illustration. In some cases, we did a new illustration that would better match the color palette of the photo. It was important to choose a food and background color for the illustration that was part of the same color palette as the photograph. While the illustration needed to be engaging and fun, the photo still need to be the main focus of the opener layout.

SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS

I worked on a marketing campaign for initial promotion of the book. I created a series of Instagram slide and individual posts for audiences to get to know both Gaby and the cookbook. I wanted the ads to reflect the style of the book while being easily read on social media.