I recently gave a talk to the Visual Communication (VisCom) students at the Arts University Bournemouth. After the talk I was delighted to accept the invitation to be one of the judges of their third annual Type & Cake bake off.

Course leader Sally Hope introduced the competition as “a fusion of the course’s collective love for type, cake and baking” and there were entries from students, lecturers and visiting tutors. The judges had a difficult task with, if I remember correctly, 23 baking triumphs for us to sample. It was a tough job!

Clearly everybody had put a lot of time, research and thought into their creations. There were well thought through concepts, witty punch lines, impressive craftsmanship and a range of type styles. All of them tasted as good as they looked.

The overall winner was third-year student Zachariah Lloyd, who used his girlfriend’s chocolate cake recipe and cut out letterforms from the sponge (below). “It took an hour to cut them out,” he said, “I couldn’t tell you what typeface it was I was trying to cut them out well!”

Mark Sephton (above)

Sally Hope (above), the letters are letters based on letterpress blocks in the university’s collection.

Photos by Tiffany Tejada and Sarah Hyndman. If you baked any of these cakes will you please get in touch and tell me your name so I can credit you?

Click here to read about the Type & Cake bake off on the AUB blog.

Would you like me to come and give a talk to your group or organisation? Email me on sarah@typetasting.com (and feel free to invite me to eat cake afterwards!)