Jessie Bayliss

'For the Love of Food' is Paul Ainsworth's Sunday Times bestselling cookbook, published by HarperCollins on 4 July 2024. I was commissioned to produce the cover illustration and a suite of interior food illustrations alongside a cast of playful anthropomorphic characters running through the book.

I combined observational pen and ink food drawing with dressed-animal characters in the British nursery-illustration tradition, giving the cookbook a tone that sits between classic food publishing and storybook warmth. The cover anchors the visual language, with the interiors carrying it through chapter openers, recipes and marginalia.

The book was published by HarperCollins on 4 July 2024 and went on to become a Sunday Times bestseller.