Authentic-ish

Positioning

Every cookbook on Amazon claims authenticity. Traditional. The real thing. Just like nonna made.

This series deliberately changes those recipes to cut calories and raise protein, which by definition makes them less authentic. Pretending otherwise is the weak version. Owning it is the strong version.

In one line: the cookbook series that admits it changed the recipe, and tells you what that cost you.

What the name means

The “-ish” is the whole brand. It’s the bit of honesty every other lightened cookbook leaves out. It does three jobs at once: it stands out in a market drowning in authenticity claims, it makes the premise credible rather than self-contradictory, and it keeps a British author writing 12 national cuisines from claiming an authority he hasn’t got.

Tagline

Less authentic. On purpose.

Approved alternates, in order of preference:

• We changed the recipe. Here is what it cost you.
• Not your nonna. Still good.
• Every swap, and what it costs.

The mark

The logotype is the wordmark set in the display serif, with -ish in terracotta. The colour break is the whole idea, so it carries into every lockup.

Authentic-ish

Clear space on all sides is the height of the capital A. On dark grounds the wordmark sets in paper with the terracotta lifted to the dark-mode value below. Never set the whole wordmark in the accent colour, and never break the hyphen onto a second line.

Typography

• Display: a warm, slightly wonky serif. It should read handmade rather than corporate, because that’s the point.
• Body: a readable serif at a generous line height. Recipe methods are long-form reading, not interface text.
• Numbers: always figures. 18 weeks, 320g, 220C, 30%. Never spelled out above ten.

Voice and tone

Danny Vale writes every word. Plain, funny, self-deprecating, practical. He talks like a chef, not a nutritionist. British English, contractions, short sentences. He writes “I” about himself and “you” about the reader, never “we”.

The four pillars everything is written against:

1. We changed it, and we say so. The honesty is the product.
2. Every swap has a price. No swap is free and the book never pretends one is.
3. Sometimes make the real one. A brand that tells you when to ignore it is a brand you believe the rest of the time.
4. Kitchen authority, not cultural authority. A cook’s claim, not a nation’s.

Do

• Say what a change costs in the same breath as the change.
• Print the number and where it came from.
• Name the dishes that don’t survive lightening.
• Use figures for anything above ten.
• Admit when the traditional version is better.

Don’t

• Use clean, guilt-free, naughty, superfood, sinful, detox, or wellness journey.
• Show a finished-dish photograph that isn’t the dish the reader will produce.
• Claim to speak for a cuisine, a country, or somebody’s grandmother.
• Invent a grandmother and present her as real.
• Give dietary or medical advice.
• Print a number that can’t be traced to a named database row.

Imagery

Three tiers, chosen by what the image is of, never by budget alone. Commissioned photography for the finished lightened dish. Generated imagery, always seeded from a reference, for chapter openers and mood. Licensed or public-domain stock for raw ingredients and equipment, because a photograph of saffron threads is a photograph of saffron threads.

One rule sits over all three: never show a finished dish that isn’t the dish the reader will make. A stock photo of traditional carbonara next to our lightened carbonara is a picture of food the reader won’t produce, and it undercuts the only thing this brand sells. Finished-dish images are commissioned, or they are text.