Project Role: Freelance Communication Designer
Year: 2020
Brand & Identity, MailChimp, Merch Design, Packaging Design, Print Design, Photo Retouching, Web Design, Wordpress
Hot Bread Kitchen
Hot Bread Kitchen, a nonprofit organization, focuses on empowering immigrants, women of color, and gender-expansive individuals by providing career opportunities in the food industry. Their goal was to create sub-branding for various campaigns that reflected their mission of economic mobility and inclusivity, while maintaining accessibility to their diverse audience.
I began collaborating with Hot Bread Kitchen during the COVID-19 pandemic, a critical time for NYC's food businesses. As the pandemic disrupted the community, it was an opportunity to expand HBK’s strategy to continue supporting small-business owners. I helped brand a virtual Food Entrepreneurship Forum, which saw a large turnout. I produced social graphics to market the event, digital assets for Zoom calls, slideshows and handouts.
I developed Hot Bread Kitchen's skintone color palette to ensure visual consistency while representing a diverse range of skin tones. The goal was to align with Hot Bread Kitchen’s mission by fostering awareness and solidarity with the BIPOC community, using the palette exclusively in illustrations to reflect inclusion. Illustrations provide a colorful, animated and imaginative aspect to a graphic that cannot be achieved through photos and typography alone.
After the event, I continued collaborating with Hot Bread Kitchen by producing event flyers and social media graphics. These highlighted successful small businesses that started through Hot Bread Kitchen’s programs, showcasing their growth and impact on the community. I also helped market their ongoing educational workshops, ensuring small-business owners had access to resources for continued development and success.
I edited portraits in Photoshop to create a cohesive look for Instagram and their website. Each photo was taken in different locations with varying devices, so I cut out the subjects, applied HBK-colored gradient backgrounds, and resized them for consistent face sizing. I also color-corrected the images and used the burn tool to reduce overexposed lighting.
