For my senior project, I decided to go about creating a combination of a brand catalog and a cookbook, showcasing Williams Sonoma products in real recipe scenarios. With Williams Sonoma being a globally-recognized brand with loyal followers, I wanted to create something that would attract new, younger customers who may not know much about the brand or its stores. The finished “cookalog” is something that customers would pick up (for free) in-store then take home, able to soon after create their own memorable experiences and dishes, keeping them coming back to the store for more.

To begin, I came up with my problem statement and objectives:

Williams Sonoma stores can be daunting places to walk into with no prior knowledge as they are full of enticing professional cooking equipment and products. They are places that carry many helpful tools many inexperienced chefs may not know about or how to use them. The catalog / recipe book I create will help steer users in the right direction and showcase real-world applications when it comes to the kitchen tools or products they need and the recipes they want to create. It’s practicality and ease of use along with fun playlist curation will keep customers coming back to the stores and purchasing products.

The end result of this project will be a catalog for Williams Sonoma that showcases their products in real recipe scenarios. The images that go with the recipes will show both the recipes along with the showcased products being used. I am also planning to curate playlists to go along with each recipe as the user creates the dishes. Deliverables will include a print version of brand curated recipe book catalog containing specific showcased products available to purchase along with curated playlists. I will be creating an ebook / PDF version of this book as well. The curated playlists that correspond to each recipe / product page will be availble via Spotify as well.

I created a work breakdown structure chart (above) to keep myself organized. After diving deeper with background research and gathering photo materials via Unsplash and the Williams Sonoma website, I then chose recipes to include.

I decided to create one appetizer spread (2 recipes), two main course spreads (2 recipes), and two dessert spreads (2 recipes). Each recipe was created with a corresponding curated Spotify playlist that a customer could listen to while cooking said recipe.

In the end, I printed ten cookalogs to distribute to my friends and family. Each cookalog was 16 pages and saddle-stitched.