The Journey of a Bratwurst
Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects
34 inches x 48 inches
The Journey of a Bratwurst poster was created as an exploration of my ancestry and the cultural importance of food. I explored my German roots, as I share an even mix of English and German. As I was growing up, we often ate bratwursts off the grill in the summer. Choosing bratwursts for this poster created a sense of nostalgia to connect my childhood to the historical importance of my culture (that I didn’t know anything about).
Design choices were made to reflect German culture while also telling a multi-dimensional story about how a bratwurst is cooked, where a bratwurst came from, and my own family’s immigration story to the United States from Germany. The color palette is based off the colors of the German flag–red, black, and yellow–while also adding green to represent the regional flag of North Rhine-Westphalia where my family is originally from. Each color tells a different story intersecting around the bratwurst and its importance to German cuisine. The poster was paired with a video project to illuminate the process of cooking the dish and connecting myself to my heritage.
play video!
I wanted to relate the video to the sense of childhood nostalgia that I associate with a bratwurst. The introduction explores the journey through the Midwest and my hometown roots. The hands-on experience of cooking a bratwurst allowed me to further my connection to my culture, the poster, and the food.