Designing a Cohesive Cookie Set is as Easy as 1-2-3

1. Theme & Style
The first task is to decide on what theme you are going to follow. This may be something as simple as “rainbows” or something more complex such as “vintage elegance.” Choose a theme that excites you and gives you a clear focus for your cookie set. Browsing social media for ideas may help narrow your vision. In the example above, the theme for the baby shower I chose to follow was “bohemian modern.” I knew I wanted to incorporate a contemporary aesthetic with classic baby shower elements.

2. Color Palette
Once you have determined your theme, the next step is to decide on the color palette. Will you work in more neutral colors or more bold, statement colors? Keeping your colors to a maximum of 6 will help focus your cookie set and will save you the hours you could spend on mixing colors. One suggestion is to pick three colors and mix different shades of each color. Or two pick one or two bold colors and accent with complementary lighter colors. Return to your theme to help decide which colors to choose. For my baby shower set, I chose a soft fuschia, a mustard yellow, and a brown. The brown and mustard yellows helped convey the bohemian theme, while the lighter fuschia and pale yellow conveys the elements of a classic baby shower set.

3. Shapes & Designs
The final step is to choose your cutter shapes and determine your designs. For a set of two dozen cookies, typically 6 different designs are utilized, so each design can be repeated 4 times. To help balance the set, choose a combination of specific shapes and plaques. In the example set, the baby romper and sunshine cloud were specific shapes, while the diamond and arch were plaques. Combining detailed specific-shaped cookies with simple plaque cookies provides balance to the set, allowing the eye a place to rest when observing the cookies all at once. Likewise, the colors you chose should be evenly distributed throughout the set (unless otherwise determined by your theme).

While it may seem overwhelming to design an entire set of cookies from scratch, once the idea is broken down into theme, color palette, and shapes, you can easily conquer this task, and you might tap into some inner creativity you didn’t know you had!