While looking through everyone’s menu design, I had a hard time choosing which one was my favorite. After some consideration, I realized that Whitney Demarest’s flip book-like menu was definitely my best pick.

The hierarchy of the menu starts from top and guides your eyes to the bottom. It begins with the front page menu with a simple logo and address. When lifting up that page, we are shown the appetizers, then to the soups, salads, and sides page, then sandwiches, then entrees, and finally burgers. Each page is separated based on category and is organized in the order that people would most likely order their food in over the course of their meal. It starts with the smaller dishes and moves on to the bigger ones at the bottom. Comparing this to my menu, which was a two page open layout menu, I would say that hers does a much better job at showing visual hierarchy. I tries to move in order from appetizers to meals, but I end the menu with the list of sides, soups and salads.

The fonts used are simple in formatting with the categories texts in bold while the rest are normal. All of the text is appropriate for a menu and are easy to read and navigate through. For my menu, I tried to match the font of the logo I used on the front of my menu and the bold category text in a different font. For that font, I was trying to imitate the look of the chalk boards that are hung up all over the restaurant.

I love the flip book style of the menu she created. It’s all kept very clean and simple, blending in nicely with the warm atmosphere of the restaurant. The only colors used are brown, white, and black. All of these work together perfectly to make a visually sound menu. Though nothing stands out too drastically, I really like the consistency of it. For my menu I chose to use the same color scheme for the same reasons stated above. I like using a color scheme that doesn’t distract too heavily from what the reader should actually be looking at when they open a menu, the food options. It should be easy to navigate and fit in with the theme of the restaurant.

I would say that my only gripe with this menu is the font sizing on it. It’s readable but I think because of how tiny it is that in a dim lit room it would strain the reader’s eyes too much. But that could just be me with my bad eyesight. For my menu I tried to take that into account by making the typeface large and bold enough for the reader  to easily navigate through.

Overall, I love this menu. It’s simple and easy to navigate through. While some of the font is a bit small, I think that it’s still designed well and has a great simple look to it. The flip book idea is really interesting and cute. I think it fits in with the home-like theme of the restaurant.

My Menu Design: norman-menudesign

Whitney Demarest’s Menu Design: