Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Cake Decorating and Graphic Design-- What's the same?

...or should I say, "What's the difference?"

        In my experience with cake decorating I have learned to take direction from my superiors, add my own unique ideas, and compromise with customers when taking cake orders. You wouldn’t think at first that cake decorating relates to graphic design. However, I have experienced three main similarities:

        1) Client interaction: Communicating and compromising to find out what they need and how I can help them. We work with what we can get for them on a budget and explore the options.
        What I’ve learned most is that a lot people don’t know what they want! And some of them don’t have a clue what is visually appealing. It is my job to guide them. I need to know my target market, and to suggest appropriate designs and themes for the customer depending on age, gender, and personality.
        In opposition, what I have learned as well is that I’m not the only one with an artistic eye. Many people have been educated on what’s visually appealing and appropriate, even if their focus is in another field completely. So don’t assume everyone doesn’t know what’s going on.

        2) Typography: Writing on cakes made me more aware of how much room I am given. I visualize where the beginning, middle, and end need to go and getting it right the first time, because there is extremely little room for error.
        Fonts. I have my own handwriting (or cake writing actually.) And then I can pretend to be anyone I want to be! I can be like a doctor and make a font that has that scribble-ness to it that is most appropriate for skateboarding boys ages 12-17. I can be a duchess with elegant script creating sophisticated wedding cakes appropriate for adults 18+. And I can be a junior high girl that write with curly-q’s on the serifs of all her letters appropriate for girls ages 12-17.

        3) Details: These are very important! It is always needed to double-check the spelling of the name. Becoming aware of color changes, the size of cake, proportionally changing the size of the design to fit the space, the choice of medium, the texture, and doing this all remaining to follow corporate guidelines and restrictions. Checking it, double-checking it, and triple-checking it are all necessary in what I call Customer Complaint Prevention. Even if I have to start over from the beginning and do it twice as fast, I do not crack under pressure. For when the customer picks up the product, they will have no idea what I went through to make it perfect. They will just go through their day as planned. Get the present, pick up the cake, go home, clean, pick up the kids.

        Now those I say are the top three, but in addition there are plenty more similarities. Fourth is edible imaging. I scan and print images. There’s plenty of cropping, printer maintenance, test copies similar to a press checks, and technical knowledge involved.

        Lastly there is creative freedom. FREEDOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!! I can test out what sells, what doesn’t, and stretch my abilities, pushing the creative boundaries everyday. It keeps my mind entertained so I never get bored. I look forward to going to work and would do it on my Saturday afternoons while listening to music.

That's all for now...

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