Penn senior seminar
Bap & Brush
A brand and website that teach Korean home cooking to people who have never tried it, with every dish drawn so a first attempt never feels like a failure.
The idea
Food is one of the few things a culture can share across a language barrier. I wanted to teach Korean home cooking to people who had never tried it. My model was Cooking Mama, the cooking game I loved as a kid: a bright, playful world where cooking feels like play.
Cooking should feel like a game you can win, not a test you can fail.
- 01
Dishes on a table
Visitors pick a dish because it looks good.
- 02
Every dish drawn
Nobody has to match a perfect photo.
- 03
Every click teaches
The story and traditions behind a dish come with its recipe.
Why illustration
A perfect food photo sets a bar a beginner feels they have to clear. A drawing lets a first attempt count as a success, so I drew every dish on the site myself. I kept the palette bright and saturated to carry the optimism the game gave me as a kid.
The dish set: pale ceramic bowls, saturated food, no photography.
The site
Each screen answers one question a beginner has, in the order they have it: what should I make, can I make it, and what do I do next.
Open on a table
The site opens on a low table set with dishes. Hovering raises one and names it, with an estimated cook time, so a visitor chooses by what looks good before committing to anything.
Put the answer to “can I make this?” first
Choosing a dish opens its page on the illustrated dish and the numbers a beginner checks before starting: prep, cook and total time, eight steps, four portions.
Ingredients inside the steps
The steps are numbered, and each ingredient is color-coded inside the instruction that uses it. The full list sits behind a tab on the right edge and slides open over the steps when it’s needed.
The brand
The logo is a red oval that pairs 밥, Korean for rice, with a brushed “& Brush”. The palette is five colors: red, cream, parchment, mustard and ink. The display type is set heavy, in red with a dark outline.