In his memoir, Beaujolais in My Blood: Growing Up Gay and Well-Fed in a Family-Run French Restaurant, Eric Neil Pitsenbarger shares his coming-of-age and coming-out story, along with the history of the family business.
Eric’s family moved to Mendocino from Berkeley in the 1960s with the intention of starting a French restaurant that became a local and then global destination, placing Mendocino on the map.
Eric is an accomplished multidisciplinar artist and graphic designer, and over the years has kept safe a vast amount of family documents and ephemera.
Working for another creative who knows the ins and outs of the process and profession is a challenge, but in this case led to a final design that reflects Eric’s personality and how it integrates with the family’s history.
To create the design, I dug into Café Beaujolais ephemera and family documents to put the idea together.
The typography used on the book cover is Eric’s mom’s handwriting, taken from the handwritten menus from decades ago.
The graphic element is a mix of different illustrations and pictures that helped Café Beaujolais reach well-deserved fame.
Eric’s graphic skills are shown in the interior design, with an epigram at the beginning of each chapter and an ornament at the end of every chapter.
This has been a very collaborative project in terms of using resources already created, however adding my own style while still matching Eric’s personality.
Learn more about Eric: http://www.ericneilpitsenbarger.com/