OUGD504 - Design for Print and Web: Menu Design Development

I did some sketches first on the layout of the menus now that I have the content I want to include:

Then I started to draw a rough mock-up with measurements such as the margin and gutter:

Gutter: 5mm
Margin left, right, bottom: 20mm
Margin top: 30mm

I then started to take these digitally.

Food Menu

I made sure I created a grid, sticking to the measurements I created in the sketch. I think it's really important making sure the leading is consistent so that the overall design looks proportioned and doesn't look out of place. I decided to use Adobe Garamond for the bodycopy because it is widely used for bodycopy in books so I thought it would fit well with my theme, plus customers would find it easy to read because they are used to seeing it. I also think that it fits the tone of voice of my cafe.

I began by having the heading in capital letters, and a black line separating the headings to the products. I didn't really like the capital letters because it is grammatically incorrect and after doing it I realised I didn't need it as I had a larger point size for this to make it stand out.

I started adding all the content in the same manner.

I changed the lines to red to make it stand out a bit more rather than being a big block of black.

I then tried one of my other layouts to see how that worked. I started off with the first section.

Heres how it started to look. I wasn't very happy with it, it seems.. too simple.

Here is how the whole menu looks:

I felt like the price was too bunched up in one area with the description and heading, so I moved it to the bottom.

I still thought it looked out of place there, so I moved it underneath the description.

I added the correct space between the lines so that it looked in proportion.

Here is the whole menu now, and I still don't like it - I much prefer the first one as it allowed the customer to see more about the product.

I started adding more of the correct content and descriptions, making sure everything was spelt correctly.

Here is the finished food menu. The primary heading is 14pt, the secondary headings are 12pt and the bodycopy is 10pt. The dimensions for the menu are 210x370mm.

Drink Menu

For the drinks menu I wanted it to work well with the food menu. I made it exactly half the width. I tried adding a red line between each product at first but I felt it made it harder to read because it doesn't flow easily.

I then just added one line at the top of the menu so it matched the food menu.

I added all the correct descriptions and made sure the leading was correct and the same as the food menu.

Here is the final drinks menu. The header point size is 12pt, and the bodycopy is 10pt, to match the food menu. The dimension for this is 120x246mm.