Fresh Bites is a community cooking program hosted at Essex Street Market in New York City. The visual identity system includes illustrated produce, posters, recipe cards, and environmental graphics designed to support food education and cultural storytelling.

Client: Essex Street Market (via Lower East Side Partnership)

Outputs: posters, recipe cards, postcards, environmental cutouts

Focus: consistent system across changing classes + months

A modular illustration library built to scale from icons to large-format installs.

A modular illustration system was created to represent fruits, vegetables, and pantry ingredients used throughout the program.

The illustrations were designed to function as a flexible visual language across multiple formats. Each ingredient could appear independently, combine with others in recipe compositions, or scale into larger environmental graphics throughout the market.

The system allowed the program to quickly produce new materials while maintaining a consistent visual identity.

Each ingredient was drawn to work alone, in pattern, or inside poster compositions. This made it easy to build new event materials without redesigning the style every time. This created a food illustration system.

Bilingual cooking demonstration posters system built for quick updates and consistent recognition inside the Essex Street Market.

Recipe cards and worksheet templates for a community cooking program designed for take-home learning.

Seasonal palette approach tied each event’s visuals to its featured dish.

Lightweight applications that extended the voice of the program beyond signage. Reinforcing the Lower East Side food culture

The Fresh Bites program at Essex Street Market demonstrates how illustration, community programming, and educational design can work together to support local food culture.

Guest chefs and community storytellers introduced recipes and cultural food traditions to market shoppers.

Expanded into free, recurring classes for LES residents, requiring a more scalable toolkit of posters, templates, and educational materials.

Related Work from the Lower East Side Partnership

Essex Street Market History Exhibition Exhibition graphics and historical storytelling celebrating the legacy of one of New York’s oldest public markets.

Pickle Day NYC Festival graphics and promotional design for the Lower East Side’s annual pickle celebration.