OUGD504: Design for Print & Web Menu Development

For my food and drink menus, I wanted to initially focus more on the design and layout of each menu as opposed to the content. Therefore, to get a good idea of how my menu would look, I used an existing American Diner menu and copied their dishes/beverages. 

Firstly, I thought to use JB's American Diner in Brighton's menu. After visiting this restaurant in the summer, I thought their range was appropriate for my restaurant. 

During the process of typing up the JB's menu, I remembered Ed's Diner - one of my personal favourites. I have been to Ed's Diner a couple of times, and I really liked the atmosphere and general feel of the restaurant. I remember the experience being unique due to the food, restaurant layout, and also the fun extras such as a jukebox system for anyone to use. Ed's Diner also uses fun language and tactics to provide a relaxed, friendly and engaging atmosphere. Therefore, I felt more inclined to use their menu instead..

I wanted the menus to follow the same colour scheme as my logo. Therefore I created these with the same colour values I had previously been working with. 

Another element which was crucial when forming the identity of my menus and general branding was the choices of font. As I originally had been working with Bebas Neue, I began using this for the menu sub-headings. 

For the individual food options, I wanted to find an italic font which followed a similar style to the JB's menu. This lead me to find the Brush Script MT Italic font which was ideal. For the body copy, I chose to use American Typewriter. Not only was the name relevant, it also worked nicely against the Brush italic. This is shown below..

Main Menu

Below is the the finished first menu design. As development, I changed the Bebas Neue typeface to Futura Condensed ExtraBold. This worked more effectively than the Bebas Neue as the weight was heavier and the typeface generally stood out more noticeably, without losing any legibility. As an additional feature, I added a simplistic striped effect on each side of the menu. This was then repeated to a smaller scale around the menu heading to add a three-dimensional element. 

Although I was pleased with this outcome, I was aware that it was difficult to find an appropriate place to put my comma character. During feedback in the final print and web crit, it was suggested that I should get rid of the current logo, and replace it with the character instead. It was also suggested that the menu heading's three-dimensional element was distracting as the rest of the menu content was two-dinentional.. The menu design therefore needed re-visiting, with a clearer, more logical layout. 

Below are two close-up screenshots of the heading design. Adding 'American Diner' gave the logo a big more authenticity, another feature I wanted to keep consistent through my design.

Development of the main menu required attention to detail when lining the options up. In order to do this precisely, I used ruler guides (shown below). This was also a useful way to ensure each page of my menu corresponded with the others. By all of the pages next to one another in InDesign, I was able to line up the menu heading, start point of the menu, and the spacing between food/drink options and headings.

In the main menu (displayed below), the vegetarian option was introduced. For this, I used a bright shade of green as a clear, well-recognised indication. As this was the only use of green throughout the Comma design, it was easy to understand, and instantly noticeable to vegetarians looking specifically for these options.

Drinks & Desserts Menu

For the drinks and desserts, I wanted to design individual menus. I kept the design consistent with the previous main menu through colour, type and layout. I kept the drinks menu at the same size as the main menu (A4). For the desserts menu, as there was only a small range of options, I designed it to be half the size (double-sided) so A4 folded in half.

Kids Menu 

A smaller menu, A5 sized. This was designed as a mini menu for 'mini commas' - a nick name for Kids eating/drinking at Comma. This adds emphasis to the welcoming nature of the Diner, embracing all ages and families.

The next stage of menu development was to prepare it to be effectively printed double-sided. I also thought the menu itself still looked a bit bland, and would benefit from a busier background or stock. This was when I referred back to the female Comma character I previously created. I thought this would work perfectly on a smaller scale in a large quantity.

I thought it would become too repetitive, and unimaginative to simply use the same one character continuously. I wanted to design a range of other characters, based on this one, to work as a group. I created these in a similar manner to the original character, using Illustrator.

In order to follow the broad audience I was aiming my Diner towards, I thought it was essential to generate a male character too. 

The final eight characters are shown below - male and female. I was pleased with these, although, I found it difficult to make the males as masculine as I would have liked. However, by adding a small white line to generate a quiff, and changing the lip colour to a pale pink, I was relatively happy with the icons.

The characters looked good on the menus, however they were too bold, distracting from the menu itself. To resolve this, I lowered the opacity to 50%. This was much more appropriate, and I decided to keep it this way.

As the final development of my menu, I re-visited the logo design, & menu headings. Through my own decisions, with support and suggestion from others, I came up with the new design shown below. 

The new heading slightly resembled the Pepsi logo, with a bold use of red, white and blue. This layout was far more legible, bold and clear. The scales were more logical, allowing for the logo to feature the Comma female character with the Brush italic type. This was then grouped together in InDesign and placed onto each menu accordingly.