Fall 2020-2021

Professor Erin Beckloff

This project asked me to think about space, grid, and size as components from creating a successful hierarchy of information. Looking back using a menu makes perfect sense because some information is just not necessary to read right off the bat. So my job was to make a restaurant menu along with a word mark, three icons, and a pattern to tie the entire brand together. All while creating a strong visual hierarchy of information. 

The intended audience is the hypothetical customers at Butcher and Sprout. The menu and brand design is going to establish a tone and environment for diners before they even walk into the restaurant. Brand development often has more effects that people think. One example is what would someone wear to a casual restaurant compared to a five star steak house and what branding details persuaded their decision. Once in the restaurant customers need to be able to clearly recognize menu components so that the eating experience is painless. All these details need to guide the customer into better understanding the brand as well as the product!

So much research went into this project. I began with researching “Farm to Table” style restaurants. What they often serve, what the exterior of their building looks like, what type of architectural and interior design are used in the dining space, and even down to the color scheme of the brand itself. From here I could exclude ideas for my menu that seemed to be outliers in the information I had gathered. 

After researching similar restaurants I created 15 different menu iterations. Each iteration had very bounding guidelines. Starting, I could only use one typeface, on type size and one grid. But every phase brought a little more creative freedom. Soon enough I had a balanced menu and it was on to brand design. My favorite part of this design process was the identity design. I began with a word mark so that my icons and smaller details could trail from it. The entire process was digital but the branding phase offered 

Once the menu layout had been finalized. I focused on establishing the brand identity. Here I pulled elements from my menu items to create a more casual tone to my menu. Softened the contrast, added fun patterning to create a menu that properly conveyed a family burger joint. Consistency in  spacing, color schemes, and typography elements were the