Our goal was to make a cookbook that was usable and didn’t break the bank, either to produce or to buy. We opted for a 2-color cover and 1-color interior, designing for no bleed on the inside pages to save on printing costs. It was important that the book be truly usable in a friendly kitchen way. What were the important elements to accomplish this? A) Readability – both in font selection and text layout; B) Accessibility – a book that would lay open without propping and not requiring page turns to complete a recipe; C) Personality – copy written to reflect April’s style, fun food related quotes throughout, and space for the cookbook user to write notes.

I believe we accomplished all that, and it was a team effort. Besides April, her family was fully part of this book’s creation. Her daughter, Hana, interned with me for the summer specifically to work on this project. She did a terrific job! For anyone that has put together a 160 page cookbook you know that the devil is in the details and Hana was right on those.

With Hana checking all the layout details and making copy edits, I got the fun job of designing the cover. (Hey, experience has some clout.) Sunny Point’s logo is a cheery orange sun, which was perfect for the “Dawn” part of the title. I went with hand drawn stars for the “Dark” and used a strong diagonal division of the two colors to make a bold cover.

And, I have made a good half dozen of the recipes out of the book since it was released – all with excellent results. Perhaps there is cooking hope for me yet.

Copies of the cookbook can be purchased via the Sunny Point Café blog store, or at the restaurant.