The entirety of the meal: a designer's perspective

Food alone does not create the entirety of the meal. Every meal has a message, communicates a feeling, to those who take part in it. This article is a deeper reflection on using art and visual communication in the creation of the entire meal experience. The first step towards this entirety is the mental vision of the meal – and – mentally processing visual data and visual patterns requires – training of the eye, hand and mind in drawing. This gives students the access to perception, visual data and visual communication, necessary to produce properly designed meal experience.

Composing the experience is a matter of balancing visual tools such as, points, lines, shapes, colours, proportions, movements, directions, light, sound and, orientation in the room and atmosphere, into an expressive and meaningful entirety of the meal. In other words, the meaning of the meal emerges from the interplay of activating and balancing forces. Educating students to the entirety of the meal, is accomplished by giving them examples, practice in handling pencils, brushes and other visual tools in different laboratory experiment as well as, exercises and lessons. A guide to visual principles and rules is also essential. When the components are brought together, complexity may arise in an interesting way. In other words, an understanding of visual processes gives students freedom to create the entirety of the meal in new and interesting ways.