In a heartwarming gesture of love and appreciation, 21-year-old TikToker and design student Emmeline Murray recently embarked on a special project to create a DIY recipe book for her dad, who is a chef and ran his own cooking business.
With a collection of recipes accumulated over the years, Murray took it upon herself to refine and compile her father’s favourite culinary creations into a beautifully designed book that combines personal touches and artistic flair.
@misosoupmillie thankyou for teaching us everything we know about food, can happily say we’ve learnt from the best 🤍 #homemaderecipebook #fyp ♬ original sound – e
The Inspiration
Emmeline Murray’s father has always been known for his exceptional culinary skills. With his own cooking business and a reputation as a talented chef, he amassed a vast collection of recipes from various sources, including handwritten notes, torn-out pages from food catalogues, and online discoveries. This treasure trove of recipes served as the inspiration for Murray’s thoughtful gift to her dad.
The Creation Process
Murray, alongside her mother, meticulously reviewed and selected 32 of her father’s most beloved recipes. They typed them out in a Word document, ensuring a consistent format for ingredients, method, and chef’s notes. These recipes were then artfully arranged in Adobe InDesign, complemented by visuals that brought the dishes to life.
To accompany the recipes, Murray delved into her family’s photo archives to find images of the dishes her father had previously created. Using Photoshop, she transformed these photos into animated drawings, while for recipes without photos, she curated or created captivating visuals using Adobe Illustrator. The final touch was adding colourful text borders to enhance the book’s visual appeal.
@misosoupmillie Replying to @miso soup millie TUTORIAL for my dads birthday present ❤️ i hope this answers some questions, feel free to ask more. thankyou for all the lovely comments, dad is loving the attention! #fyp #homemaderecipebook #dadbirthdaygift #dadsoftiktok #recipebookdesign ♬ Acoustic Warm – JerryJeyy
The Design Process
For the cover, Murray embraced her artistic skills and utilized Procreate to design a rustic and artistic cover that would make the book suitable for display on a coffee table. After six months of balancing her university studies and work commitments with the project, she dedicated two and a half weeks solely to the publishing stage.
Overcoming Challenges
One of the major challenges Murray faced was finding a suitable printing option for her DIY recipe book. After researching multiple companies that required a minimum order of 20 copies, she discovered that Officeworks offered professional printing services for children’s picture books. Consequently, she exported the pages from InDesign as PNGs and successfully printed the book through Officeworks.
Potential for publishing?
When asked whether she would publish the recipe book, Murray says that “due to the use of some external recipes eg. online, catalogue or books, I don’t think I would publish the book for reference and crediting issues.”
Images in this article are courtesy of Emmeline Murray.
