Festive Foods Series
Illustration • Vector Drawing
Course: Introduction to Graphic Design
Timeline: February 2025
Programs used: Adobe Illustrator
Design Project Objective
The theme for the project was cultural storytelling and I picked the topic of cultural foods for festive days around the world. The poster campaign aims to use metaphors to convey a message. I hope to show how food can bring people together, like community, belonging, and embracing identity.
Previously, I did a research project on cultural foods during holidays. I picked a food item for each of the categories of holidays: seasonal, religious, and cultural holidays.
Brianstorming
Mooncakes:
Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival
Seasonal Holiday in Fall
“Changes bring Joy”
Symbolism: Unity, Wholeness
Toshikoshi Soba:
Japansese New Year
Religious Holiday for Shintoism
“Beliefs create Joy”
Symbolism: Length of buckwheat noodles means longevity of life
Bánh Chưng:
Vietnamese Lunar New Year
Cultural Holiday for Vietnamese
“Diversity shares Joy”
Symbolism: Land of Vietnam
The thought behind making the metaphors behind the food was from researching what they represented during the holiday being celebrated. The mooncake was about the Harvest Festival which was on a lunisolar calendar. I wanted to express the season of autumn and draw wheat being harvested. Toshikoshi soba is “New Year’s” soba noodles that represent longevity which I connected to the shadow of a silhouette. I added the red gate, Torii, and Mount Fuji in the background to include imagery from Japan and Shintoism. Lastly, the Bánh Chưng was from Lang Lieu’s tale of creating Tết, Lunar New Year. The red envelopes, boat, and lotuses are cultural details.
Symbolism
Making all the posters’ focus path gives the dynamic composition. The first poster helped emphasize the wind blowing the clouds up towards the mooncake. I needed to revise the second poster, having the soba noodles move in a certain path. The last poster was the flow of water interacting with the giant glutinous rice cakes which gave depth.
Flow
It was a unanimous decision to make the first and third posters red and green despite the actual sky and water being blue. The colors match the food and holiday color, red, for good luck in many Asian cultures. The second poster was hard to pick for, but I decided on purple and found ways to bring hints of green and red into the image. Over the course, I made sure the colors were saturated compared to the first drafts to bring attention to viewers.
Color Palette
After getting the composition down, everything was about adding details, colors, and depth into each of the posters.