Food Coma:
Recipe Sharing Website

How to cure homesickness?
Treat your stomache well.

Places to dine and buy the food you miss the most.

Places and events to have the real and authemtic cusine and experience.

Waste no more money on the wrong place and wrong food.

Spend more time with friends and less on searching for food.

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Studying abroad in a foreign country has made me realize one thing — Food is the best defense against homesickness. Furthermore, I believe the idea of home can be translated into the way your mom handles eggs, the soup your grandma makes to ease your sickness, the special dishes appear in certain festivals, and so on. Nationality is not always what defines home, but the food we have every day does. This project aims to provide authentic recipes for people who desire “home food” and also for people who are adventurous in cuisines.

photo credit @akipinnote

After interviewing 20 international students studying in Paris, London, Atlanta and many other cities, I have identified three main problems they often countered when it comes to food.

1. They will tend to choose the restaurants that sell their “home food” in their daily life, but the experiences they had in those restaurants are not always satisfying, and some even are disappointing.

2. Since it’s hard to find good home food, they start to seek comfort in their own kitchen. However, while some may overcome the challenges in the kitchen, most of them find it hard to conquer. Knowing how to cook and what to cook have been a pain in the ass.

3. A main challenge of cooking they have faced is shopping. Depending on where the students live, there are different degrees of accessibility to the ingredients they need to cook the food they miss.

Target Audience

For people who live outside their comfort zones;
For people who need a taste of home;
For people who cook for a reason.

To be able to present a solution to these problems, I conclude with three key ideas to this project.
1. What to cook?
Authentic recipes categorized by culture, country, and ingredients. Providing comprehensive choices for the target to manage their dinner menu.
2. How to cook?
Complete and detailed steps with tips that only locals know.
3. Where to buy?
Information about markets to buy ingredients, comparison of prices and latest coupons updates.

Competitor Research

After identifying my customer, I researched some of the most popular recipe and food sharing websites to learn about their key activities, features, and user interface designs. By understanding my competitors, I can define more clearly where my brand stands and what trends people are following. Hence, to be able to stand out amongst all the competitors and hold onto the concept of this project at the same time, Food Coma will emphasize its cultural features by providing a comprehensive searching function allowing users to search by culture, country and festival. Moreover, there will be a personal profile providing users a platform to organize and store recipes, coupons and shopping lists.

Visual Design Process

The visual design of a brand conveys the brand’s message efficiently with the users. My initial three visual designs were inspired by three types of cuisine that I think can represent the warmth and peace of home.

1. Pumpkin soup
A bowl of hot pumpkin soup is the cure to sorrow in the cold lonely winter. The design aims to provide a warm feeling to every soul who cannot be home at the moment, and let them know that Food Coma will support them by treating their stomach well.

2. Cherry pie
Cherry pie is energetic and uplifting. This design focuses on bringing positive energy to users who need sugar to cheer up.

3. Creamy latte
The creamy latte is happiness itself. This design seeks to bring the happiness that a cup of latte brings to people all the time. The satisfying and tender feelings can help soothe the anxiety of those living in unfamiliar countries.

Combining comments from professors, users and other designers, I have chosen to develop the “Pumpkin Soup” design, which feedback described as the most appetizing as well as the most connected to the sense of home. I also decided to take the color palette from Pumpkin Soup and replace the soup with a bowl of noodles to match the desires of the target Asian audience.