The making of Peckham's Soul Food

1.Visiting JB's Soul Food & Jerk Chicken

The store is sort of hidden on a side road.

 
It was actually quite populated, with three guys eating ravenously at the corner and two other women waiting for takeaway. I waited to perhaps 10 mins and got jerk chicken.

2. Devouring jerk chicken

   
Wrapped in plastic film in a plain plastic container. Maybe they thought the sauce would leak.

The portions are huge. The chicken is smoky and heartily flavoured. This is ideal after a long day of stressful work.

There's half a chicken rib in here I swear.

JB's soul food is very classically Caribbean soul food: tasty and satiating. However the box is, for convenience, not designed. It's time for me to put some Peckham element into a takeaway box inspired by JB's soul food.

3. Making a takeaway meal

I used foam wrap for Chinese pears and painted them roughly in acrylic. After cutting them into pieces, they look surprisingly like the rice I had.

Since my room has plenty of trash, I painted the lemon net to become a whitish coleslaw, and the toilet roll orange to be pretend-carrot pieces.

The "rice" has a light and fluffy texture, which resonates with the real thing.

I painted folded toilet rolls to make BBQ chicken.

4. Designing a cover

Ephemera I collected. In making the takeaway design I have used a subway wrapper I found on the ground in the Peckham area (which matches the Caribbean colour scheme and has great textures, so I thought I might use it), the JB menu for reference, and a 30p boxers magazine I found in the charity shop.

I chose this magazine because it features a powerful strike of a boxer, which reminds me of the energy you gain after eating a satiating meal.

I started by finding bold, powerful fonts on my laptop.

I narrowed it down to these five. The second one from the top stood out to me because the font is more grand and extra bold, but also playful.

I started to play around with the layout. The first thing I know is to add a "boom!" explosion shape on the punch. I know I want the design to be mainly green and yellow because of its Caribbean associations.

   

Then, I figured out that I might modify the symbol to that similar of Halal's, which shows the diversity of Peckham and adds another layer of meaning. I used the textures from the subway wrapper so add depth. I added a 3D effect to the boxer to show movement and the colour associations. 

The final design.

5. Putting everything together

If I had more time I would have made a paper takeaway box of the current cover design, even though it wouldn't apply to JB's soul food's saucy contents.

Someone said they thought I left my lunch here.

6. Have someone taste it

Luke does a really good job pretending to eat my takeaway. His performance made the takeaway look more realistic. Definitely watch the video below!