And so I was faced with creating an image for former surgeon general David Kessler’s book on how to deal with the rise of obesity in this country.
The original title was going to be Sugar, Salt, Fat, which would have been much, much easier to deal with, because it’s very direct and would have contrasted brilliantly with images of anonymous overweight people from the, um, rear.
But then David decided he wanted the book to be not just about the problem of obesity but also what can be done to help solve it. Thus The End of Overeating.
Okay, fine, but how do you show that? Do you have people sitting at tables with empty plates in front of them, not eating? Such an image wouldn’t get the point across. That’s when I harkened back to the carrot cake and its origins. This scheme (see here) can be perceived as Before and After, going from top to bottom: so you see the cake first, get scolded/informed, and then see what you really should be eating.
The book was number one on the New York Times bestseller list for several weeks, and Kessler remarked to me on more than one occasion afterward that it was because of the icing.
Fine, I thought; as long as you can only look at it.