Starchefs
Rising Stars Magazine:
LOS ANGELES
ART DIRECTION
EDITORIAL DESIGN
ILLUSTRATION
PHOTO STYLING
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Rising Stars is a culinary trade magazine published quarterly by StarChefs, celebrating the most innovative young culinary talent in a featured region. Since one of the major takeaways from the region was the gorgeous, spacious layouts of the restaurants there the LA issue needed an airy feel to match. With this issue I continued my established balance of playful features with sophisticated biography and recipe layouts, and varied my illustration style throughout so each feature felt unique. I art directed, laid out, and illustrated this issue in under three weeks.
I also art directed the cover, illustrated by Maggie Chiang. It references the bounty of local produce that LA cuisine highlights.
I took this feature about using nitrogen to preserve coffee beans quite literally and styled the title like nitrogen's periodic table symbol. I loved this because I am a giant nerd.
This issue featured some really incredible photographs and one very dopey unicorn.
The magazine is mostly comprised of biographies and recipes from the Rising Stars winners. As always, it's a challenge to make them feel unique but visually united. The photography always needs to take center stage.
We were unhappy with the photos for this step-by-step feature, so I created illustrations that would compliment the instructional, textbook feel of the article.
I really pared down the illustrations to be as simple as possible. I wanted these to compliment the hand-scrawled drawings on the counters at Wexler's.
This simple dish of a coal-baked potato was best reflected by an equally simple and elegant layout.
The main feature celebrated Filipino food, something I am personally very passionate about!
I also art directed and styled the photos, you can see them more in depth here.
Editor: Caroline Hatchett
Photo Editor: Briana Balducci
Design Intern: Katie Danaher
Cover Illustrator: Maggie Chiang
All photos by Briana Balducci