Designing Menu Covers

Video Transcript

"In this clip we are going to talk about menu covers. What do you need to think about when you are having menu covers? What do you need to think about when you are having menu covers created? The first thing you need to think about is the style. You need to think about what is the style of the restaurant is it high end, is it low end? Are you trying to create a certain ambiance? Do you want it to be a one piece thing or a fold over? How do you want people to interact with it? What is it that you are trying to convey to them because this is their first thing, one of the first pieces that they will have after they sit down and this is it. Before they have tasted anything or drank anything they are going to touch this menu so what is the style of it? The next thing to think about is how long does it have to last? Cost is a big issue with restaurants so do you need to create something that is durable? Because then often if appetizers are brought to the table then the menus can get soiled, they can get food on them they can get drinks spilled. So is it something that you need to be able to clean off? Is it something that you need to make sure it is durable that it has some life to it, that they can't afford to keep having these remade and then how often does it need to be updated because many times a menu cover is going to be a piece that will open and then the menu will slide in each side of it and so how hard is it to actually take out the old menu and put the new ones in? This is something that you want to make sure when you are creating it you want to think about how the end user is going to deal with it. So imagine that there is wait staff and they are going to have to put this in and you want to make it as idiot proof and as easy as possible so that when they finish it that it will be, that they've done a great job with it the way that you would do it. It is not something that would require a special skill to do and another thing I want to say is there are many materials that you can use. You can use leather, you can use fabric and there are companies that specifically make menu covers out of leathers and fabrics and they will foil stamp on there and do different finishes to them and they have different sizes and those are the covers that you would put in and also though I wanted to mention many new papers on the market that are synthetic papers and they are papers that are waterproof so you can just wipe them off. They can be for a colored printer. They can also be foil stamped and these just wipe away so any time anything gets on them you can just wipe them clean and those papers are Upo, Polyart, and Tesslen and they are great for the menu market because they have a nice weight to them, they have a cool finish and you just wipe anything right off of them and they last a lot longer than a regular paper one would. So those are the things to think about when you are creating menu covers."