Menu research...

Now that I have completed my mural I can focus on my other remaining designs, starting with the food and drinks menu. Because of the nature of the restaurant, with so many different dishes and the conveyer belt system, I want to have a clean and simple design that helps people see and choose what they want as quickly and easily as possible. I will look at different menu styles, but here are a few examples of yo!sushi's current menu design...

As you can see, the corporate colours, logo and styling are carried through to their menu design and this is something which I think is very important to create the visual identity inside the restaurant as well as outside. You can also see that it is square in shape and reads like a booklet, the most common way for menu's, and on the whole has a nice clean look to it, although I believe some pages can look cluttered due to the number and variety of dishes on offer.

As much as I like this current design, I am rebranding the restaurant for a new Berlin branch so I can change practically anything bar the dishes themselves. So I wanted to look at some menu alternatives that are already in the market.

Not being somebody who eats out a lot or in new places when I do, I had no idea that people were using menu's in such a variety different ways. Here is just a handle of some of my favourites I came across. There is an origami style, an elegant 2 or 3 fold design, a rough sort of clipboard chart design and even a new digital menu which really shows the technological times that we're currently living in. But I think my favourite out of these is the wooden style menu, but purely for aesthetic reasons.

Although the idea of a digital menu sounds ideal on most occasions, for my yo!sushi branch it would not only clash with the Berlin restaurant style, but it would be a waste as the yo! menu is only to view what is on offer, not to select and pay for like in normal restaurants. And the origami and clipboard menu's would most likely fail in the durability department, despite undoubtedly looking the best, as they would endure a lot of handling and constant use. Whereas although the sleek and elegant folded menu design would serve all the right purposes, is it lacking in creativity? Would it be knocked over all the time with the methods of the yo! dining experience? Purpose and practicality is often overlooked in design, so I need to really make sure I remember to take these into consideration.

Feeling that I have gained a great deal of influence from this research, and have a number of ideas floating around my head, I will now get designing and report back soon.