“À Table!” is a two-color screen-printed poster inspired by cookbook photography from the 1970s and 1980s. These images often depict unlikely and visually unappealing dishes, presented with complete seriousness. What makes them compelling is that they were never meant to be ironic. The poster brings together a selection of real recipes found in these cookbooks. Printed in black and orange using screen printing at Atelier Bambinoin Lyon, France. Paolo (the guy I made the posters with) printed two T-shirts with it. The typefaces in use areBookman Bold Italic Swash,ITC Bodoni Ornaments,Cesare,Interlope,Martian MonoandZipper.Bon appétit!
This typography radiates nostalgic kitsch with deliberate maximalism — embracing the earnest camp aesthetic of 1970s cookbook design through an eclectic mix that feels both sincere and self-aware. The energy is playfully chaotic yet organized, channeling the visual excess of vintage food photography where every typographic element competed for attention without irony.
The six-font system works because each typeface serves a distinct functional role while maintaining period authenticity: Bookman Swash provides ornate hierarchy with its flowing terminals, ITC Bodoni Ornaments adds decorative punctuation, Cesare and Interlope offer contrasting text weights, while Martian Mono grounds the composition with technical precision. The varied x-heights and stroke contrasts create visual texture that mirrors the cluttered-yet-purposeful aesthetic of vintage cookbook layouts.
This typographic eclecticism succeeds because it mirrors the visual chaos of 1970s cookbook design where restraint was abandoned in favor of expressive abundance. The tension between ornate swash capitals, geometric sans-serifs, and monospaced type creates a deliberately overstimulated hierarchy that feels authentic to the source material rather than haphazard — each font fighting for attention just as the original cookbook elements did.