Interview With The Internet Sends Me Cake

We were totally taken aback by The Internet Sends Me Cake, a website that will link to yours... but only on the condition that you send in homemade cake. From the introduction: "If you send me a cake, I post a link to your work on the internet... You will be judged solely on your cake rather than your work, which makes this an equal opportunity link site. It is that simple and that awesome (for me and my studiomates)." In a link economy, forget something as mundane as exchanging links — maybe sometimes you'll have to be willing to barter tangible and edible goods.

We managed to get in touch with the site's creator Jessica Hische (who's incidentally also responsible for Daily Drop Cap), and she found the time to answer a few questions:

So what was the inspiration for the project?

JH: A few weeks ago, a girl wrote me a super nice email to tell me how much she loved my work and said if I ever sent her any jobs I didn't want, she would bake me a cake. I thought this was so funny and such a nice silly departure from normal emails I get from students and young professionals looking for work (always so serious!). I was at the studio when I wrote her back and was joking with one of my studiomates that I should make a website based on this idea, work opportunities for cake, and theinternetsendsmecake.com was born. The more I thought about it, the more I really liked the idea—an equal opportunity link site where students, fresh-out-of-school designers, and people that aren't well connected in the design community can get a bit more exposure. Usually on design blogs, you fly through images of people's work without necessarily taking note or clicking on their portfolio sites to see more.

This site showcases and judges designers based solely on their baking skills, then invites people to click to see work. That way, people can actually get an idea of who is looking at their work (by checking their Google Analytics). Also, future clients know you're a baker! And everyone knows bakers are not only great direction followers and good at seeing projects to finish, they are generally nice and warm people!

And who gets to eat the cake?

JH: Mostly my studiomates, our neighbors, and myself, though anyone that wants to stop by and have cake can!

How many cakes have you gotten so far? What was the best one?

JH: So far, just two (the site went up less than a week ago): cardamom muffins from Amanda Brainerd (which were delicious) and a decorate your own cupcake kit made by McKenna Kemp. I think taste-wise the muffins might win, but judged based on creativity the cupcake kit definitely wins. It was so well put together, McKenna even called them "open source" cupcakes because we had the freedom to decorate them as we wished.

I noticed you do graphic design and illustration, and sometimes restaurant identities and food packaging -- anything people might recognize?

JH: I actually worked for Louise Fili for 2.5 years, who is the queen of restaurant and food packaging design. Some of the more recognizable projects I worked on while there are the Good Housekeeping seal of approval, Q.Bel chocolate, Irving Farm's new packaging, L'Arte del Gelato, and Calea and il Conte wines.

Would you accept pie? Cookies?

JH: Yep! And actually if you are overseas or afraid to ship your creation, you can just bake a confection for your friends, have them judge it and take pictures, and send it along and it will still get posted to the site!

And what will you do when the internet sends you tons of cake?

JH: Hopefully figure out a way to donate it (if food drives or shelters accept strangerfood from the internet).