Nigella = obvious domestic Goddess.

I, like many other people throughout the world, love Nigella Lawson. For one, she's a bit of a babe and embodies most of the great aspects of women. She's also a great host on her TV shows, and I've spent many a great evening with my Mum, eating dinner and watching Nigella. This is about one of her many books, which I've actually found on Amazon (evil) as an extract from the Kindle version.

Nigella Lawson, Nigella Express: Good Food Fast, Hyperion, 2007

Here's the lovely cover of Nigella looking like a babe with her pasta. Now, while I do think this is a great cover with a bold heading and great stand-alone repeated subheading, I'm confused by the need for colour, which is something throughout the ebook. Perhaps it helps it sell, I don't know. This is the Kindle version, and only the latest (most expensive) Kindle has full colour - the Kindle fire. Without this, the cover and careful contrast of the green writing on darker background becomes redundant. Also, I think having a Kindle Fire is more about saying 'I don't want an ipad' rather than anything about e-readers - it doesn't (and probably can't) use the ink technology I feel is the best thing about e-readers. Although you could use this ebook on your computer, not everyone likes to have their laptop in the kitchen.

Contents and 'About this Book'. Apologies for the poor quality - screen capture.
Click on the images for a better view.

Each recipe is hyperlinked, and these work within these sample pages and presumably the ebook you purchase also. The typeface used throughout the body copy is a serif - something similar to Times New Roman. As a book that relies on the information it gives, the typeface choice is a good one. Nothing too fancy, nothing too plain.

Oh Nigella, you so cool.

The introduction is quite similar to the above typeface, I just liked the picture of Nigella. It brings it back to the fact this is her cookbook, since the rest of the pictures I've seen are just of food. Plus she's probably the reason you bought it in the first place. Still it's in colour though - a tad useless on the Kindle.

Section marker.

As these are just sample pages from the ebook, this is the only section marker that you can view. I really like this page even though I'm really not a pink kind of girl. The typeface is simple and slightly serif, but still a little bit fancy, there's a nice play with the 'easy' and the clock in the frying pan implying the recipes are easy and non-time consuming. Underneath, again, are hyperlinks to the recipes in this section. Not going to lie though, they don't all sound that easy. 

Delicious-looking pizza.

Here's an example of one of the recipes - naan pizza. Looks pretty good, although Nigella does say she can eat a whole takeaway pizza - crazy. As before, the text is in the same typeface. The title is in the nice pink, a repeat feature from the section marker. I think it's nicely set up - the title, an introduction about the recipe and how she came up with it, the ingredients and then the step by step process. One thing I think is great is the use of the bold typeface for the ingredients list. We've covered recipes before in our editing classes at school, and this follows what we've said in class - ingredients go in the order in which you use them in the recipe. Plus it helps them stand out from the rest of the recipe. The picture, while looking fantasticly delicious, does become a bit redundant given the black and white nature of most Kindles, as previously discussed. However, an image adds so much more to a recipe, I personally always like to know what the thing I'm making is supposed to look like.

Just for another example, here's the recipe for Nigella's mustard pork chops.

And here's the picture of them. Just for another mouthwatering image.


That's all I've got for Nigella and her Kindle- format cookbook. More book design to come soon.