How to Design a Menu Cover
You may not always be able to judge a book by its cover, but you should be able to tell from the cover design of a restaurant menu if the owner is creative, professional and has invested the time to put together an attractive teaser that will whet your appetite before you even open it to the first page.
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Instructions
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Identify the theme and target demographic of your restaurant. Examples: upscale dining, family-friendly, ethnic cuisine, students, commuters. Consider as well any historic and regional significance of the restaurant.
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Make a list of colors and images most commonly associated with the cuisine you serve. For instance, if your specialty is seafood, your primary color scheme will be varying shades of blue and the images would include ships, seascapes, fishermen, fish, shells, nets and seagulls. If the locale has historic connections, add its famous landmarks to your list.
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Determine the size and orientation you'd like your menu cover to be. Most menus are in a portrait (vertical) format versus landscape (horizontal) because this is the easiest for customers to handle. The size of the cover is predicated on the amount of interior content. The most common sizes are 8 1/2 by 11, 4 1/4 by 11, 8 1/2 by 14 and 4 1/4 by 14 inches.
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Decide what type of material you want to use for your menu cover. If you're going to go with 20-pound paper or sturdy card stock and have it laminated for durability, you have more options than if you want your menu cover to utilize pricier materials such as leather, wood, metal or fabric. These latter choices are limiting insofar as designs other than stylized embossing, engraving, etching or affixing a metal or plastic title plate.
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Create a worksheet that reflects the dimensions you have chosen for your menu cover. You'll use this worksheet to do rough sketches of where you want the name of the restaurant placed and how you want to position any accompanying images such as photographs, artwork, or clip art. This can also be done directly on your computer.
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Choose a font that is not only consistent with the overall theme of the menu and restaurant but is also easy to read. It's important that the name of the restaurant doesn't get swallowed up by whatever image is directly behind it. Restaurant names are usually placed in the center of the cover or in the lower right corner, but this is entirely up to the designer. Another creative possibility is to use a new or vintage photograph of the restaurant exterior where its name is clearly visible.
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Tips & Warnings
Troll through vintage menus at websites such as www.davesvintagestuff.com/2008/09/vintage-menus-part-i-1950s.html or books such as "May I Take Your Order: American Menu Design 1920-1960" by Jim Heimann (1998). Resources such as "1,000 Restaurant, Bar and Cafe Graphics: From Signage to Logos and Everything In Between" by Luke Herriott (2009) and "Restaurant Graphics" by Grant Gibson (2007) provide great idea-starters for menu covers.
Unless you have access to a professional food photographer, resist the temptation to snap pictures of your specialties and put them on the cover. Amateur photos rarely do real food justice. A better option is to use items such as plates, wine bottles, spices and cooking utensils. If you absolutely insist on photographing food and doing it yourself, stick to basics like fresh fruits, raw vegetables and hunks of bread.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Image by Christina Hamlett
