Alvin Diec

This Cakes and Ale restaurant menu by Alvin Diec, a graphic designer from atlanta, is another example of how difficult yet possible it is to work out a layout suitable for a menu design. There is a lot of text on a menu and they are often designed so that the list is centred or left justified like below to fit everything on. Yet Diec has managed to make it look subtle and not too text heavy by leaving white space where possible and creating a cover design with a light tint of black so that it sits back on the page.

Morrissey

Here is a simple, classy identity design for Milano restaurant by William Morrissey. I definitely think with a four star hotel, the simpler the better so this is a good example of the professional finish I want it to have. Even though I aren't designing the identity logo for the hotels, I still have the individual restaurants to design in a subtle, sophisticated style like this.

Nothing Something

I'd really like to keep a simple black and white theme throughout my menu designs, with perhaps a small introduction of colour to separate the hotel sets. This being said, I really like this design by Nothing Something for Magnolia Gastropub & Brewery, although it is quite busy with a lot going on. Separate attachments for daily menus might be a good idea like they have used below.

Promotional research

Book stores, such as Waterstones always have large scale posters advertising their offers, new stock, latest best sellers, etc. so I want to design posters suitable for this environment.

Here is a typical layout for book promotion, with bold limited text and a large image, that I will base my designs around.

Carson Ellis

The rake's-song in graphite - album art by Carson Ellis

This gave me the idea of creating type out of twigs, something which I have experimented with before so may try again.

Julian

Nathaniel Cooper collaborated with Jordan Gray and Brent Anderson to design this menu for Julian restaurant. Again it is type driven, with no distracting imagery or fancy patterns.White space and neat layout is the key theme I want to focus on, like the example below.

This Black & White Masked Ball Invitation for the Shakespeare Festival below is also by Nathaniel Cooper. I'd like to combine this spot varnish finish for a cover design with the simple Julian design above to hopefully create a minimal, sleek menu design.

Nathaniel Cooper

This is a nice, clean cut menu layout that suitably fits in with the theme of the restaurant - something that is important to consider when I design the hotel menus.