The illustrations on The Great British Bake Off are as integral to the show as the tent, innuendos and the Hollywood Handshake over the last 10 years – but have you ever spared a thought for who is behind them?
Well, after going without much credit over the last decade, we finally know who is responsible for the handcrafted drawings that demonstrate what each baker will be making, after the food illustrator posted a thread on Twitter.
Ahead of the new series’ launch on Tuesday night, artist Tom Hovey revealed he was celebrating 10 years of working on the show.
Alongside the illustration of the winning bakes from the first and most recent series, he told of how he landed the job by chance.
Tom tweeted: “I moved to London in 2010, & got a job logging footage in the edit of the first episode. The editor (Simon Evans) & the director (Andy Devonshire) decided there was a visual element missing from the show. Something to help the viewers understand what was hopefully being created.
“I got the gig and the rest is history!”
Revealing he and his team have drawn “well over 3,000 bakes to date”, Tom described Bake Off as “the hardest, longest, most challenging and brilliant project I’ve ever been a part of.”
He also paid tribute to his “incredible long suffering wife Candy” who he said “has had to put up with missing anniversaries, date nights and spending many weekends and evenings alone because I’m drawing cakes.”
Tom also shouted out his team at his eponymous illustration company, Hovey Studios, noting that Caspar Wain, Alex Hovey, Sophie Ridley, Liam Callebout and Lauren Gore have helped him on the show since 2016.
The new series of Bake Off got off to a rather smutty start thanks to baker Helena and her ‘fairy garden’ on Tuesday night, while Henry also suffered a disaster that will go down in Bake Off history.
However, it is Jamie who has already marked himself out as everyone’s favourite baker this year, despite having a disastrous start to the competition.
The Great British Bake Off continues next Tuesday at 8pm on Channel 4.
