What is food styling?
Food styling is making food for commercials and commercial photography.
This includes:
Making the food that goes on the cover of a package
Making the food that actors are eating on a film
Making delicious looking images for a magazine.
While most of the time people assume that all of the food is fake, this isn’t always the case. There are some applications where fake food is necessary, you can read all about fake food styling in my previous blog post.
Food styling is an art form. I like to think of it as a form of sculpture and the food is the medium. I get a lot of questions on my TikTok for how can I get into the food styling industry and what type of education is needed to be a food stylist. While I don't know of a course yet, I’d like to share what I've observed over the past 10 years about what makes a great food stylist.
What makes a good food stylist?
I've noticed that the best food stylists in the business are two things:
They’re chefs or highly skilled cooks.
They’re artists.
In terms of being a chef they do not have to be classically trained, but the people that have the most success have an immense knowledge of food. Not only is it imperative that they have a large knowledge of food but almost an obsession with it. I was told by another food stylist when I was interested in starting in this field that I needed to go to cooking school to learn how to make food properly or get as much food knowledge under my belt as possible to give me an advantage.
The top food stylists are artists. I mean this in a similar way to how I talked about being a chef. You do not need to be a formally trained artist, but having a natural talent or solid understanding of design, color theory, and balance really give a stylist a leg up. Also, knowing about photography can be a huge advantage.
I’ve also observed that professional food stylist’s are kind of like a travel guide or a sherpa. We become experts at our craft and know where all the pitfalls are. Stylists work with brands and photographers that have a vision for what they want, but they don’t know how to get there. This is where a food stylist comes in. If they knew how to accomplish what they wanted themselves they wouldn’t hire someone else.
What’s Most Important On Set?
A stylist’s job is to listen to the objective and understand how to achieve these results. They then walk with the client and guide the client to their desired goal.
Sometimes, the client might think the best way to get from A to B might be a straight path, but this is where great stylists know that that particular route might not work. So we steer them in the right direction, and get them to their goal.
