There’s a point at the start of every creative project where everyone involved has anime heart eyes about it and nobody wants to pop the love bubble with talk of the hundreds of details and mountain of work it will surely spawn if it becomes a reality. That honeymoon period where all you do is fantasize about the end product and consciously ignore the dreary in-between stuff of making it happen.

Well, almost every creative project. Not the one you’re currently holding in your hands. The one that, impossibly, turned out even better than we imagined when we sketched it out on the whiteboard ten months ago. The one that only improved as the team involved got bigger and everyone’s love and enthusiasm for it built on everyone else’s.

To the best of my memory, this is the first and only project every creative resource at Ingredient played a part in. Every word, every photo, every pixel is ours. And as much as I love the finished, physical product, the thing I really love about it — the part that makes my chest hurt with pride — is how the team came together and brought this book to life. I am, of course, proud of the finished product. But I’m even more proud of our people.

I am humbled and in awe of the incredible talent we’ve assembled and how they employed their full range of skills to bring this thing to life. And I’m incredibly excited to be able to give it to you.

From all of us at Ingredient, with love. Enjoy.