In the food business, having a well-structured menu that is painstakingly spread out and arranged is an absolute necessity. A catchy menu not only helps boosts your sales but also maximizes the profits.
Altering your menu design and giving it a more professional look will help attract more customers and will drive more sales.
The science behind this is backed by the research, which concluded that a well-structured menu enhances the sales by 15%, as customers tend to order more if the design of the menu is attractive.
To make sure that you design the most ideal menu, here’s a complete guide that breaks down the whole process of the menu and logo design.
Designing a menu
Although designing a menu seems like a daunting task, but the whole process can be broken down into these small steps:
- Make a list of your menu offers on a spreadsheet.
- Divide the list into segments, for example, breakfast, lunch, supper dishes, appetizers, sweets, and so on.
- Design the format of your menu. Study menu engineering to get the know-how of how customers use the menu.
- Try out a free menu maker or download a free design making software from the internet to design your menu.
- Save the menu in a PDF format and print it out.
- Make sure that you place your menus in the menu covers or on hard boards.
Although we made the whole menu designing relatively more straightforward than what you thought earlier, but you must think strategically and put a lot of thought into creating the menu design. Here are some of the best tips for designing a menu that is simple yet catchy for your customers to utilize and to help encourage more sales.
Basic layout
Customers look for specific spots on the menu. That is why you must put your best deals or popular menu items on those spots. You can also use those places for things that give you the highest profit margins, such as appetizers and entrees. Menu engineers also call these spots the Golden Triangle. These three areas are the middle, the top right, and the top left. It is observed in a study that almost every second customer takes a glance at the center of the menu first and orders from there. The study also revealed that from the middle, the eyes of the customers tend to move up and to the top right corner of the menu. And from there, customers move their gaze to the top left. So, if you want to encourage more sales and hence increase your profits, you must put limited menu items and exclusive deals in the middle, main course items and entrees on the top right and appetizers along with entrees on the top left.
Picking the design
It is of utmost importance that you pick a style that mirrors your business ideas and appeals to your clients. Here are some standard techniques that might help you while choosing the perfect design for your menu:
Upscale: These menus are usually short and contain only a handful of items on-page. Upscale menus don’t encompass images and include detailed and stylish fonts.
Family-friendly: Restaurants that use this style use lots of pictures and bright colors on their menu cards to catch the interest of the children. Family-friendly menus are usually designed with large fonts.
Modern: Present-day restaurants offer broad menus and the design that is used in the menu as per the theme of business. Though many trendy restaurants prefer a sleek design, with striking colors, stylish fonts, and unique images.
Nostalgic: restaurants that make money off nostalgia are gaining more popularity among elders as they are getting older and prefer to dine out rather than cooking for themselves at home. Nostalgic menu designs are made up of rustic and old fashioned themes. They contain quite a lot of images, even for a restaurant image. If you think that your restaurant might attract older customers than youngsters, you might think about making your font larger, as it is easily readable.
Styling the menu
Numerous particular design components go into styling your menu, for example, fonts, pictures, and color scheme, and they also provide quality and personality to your menu. Just like the layout of your menu, the menu design can help convince the customers to buy what you want them to buy. Here are numerous tips on selecting the right images, colors, and fonts for your menu:
Description: Writing appealing descriptions of the menu can convince your customers to try something new for a change and then get hooked on it. Moreover, descriptions can also contain allergies related to the menu offerings, alternative diets as well as helping the customers in buying what they are craving for.
Instead of listing the food ingredients, you must describe the taste and structure of the food while using appealing words such as delicious strawberries, candied walnuts, and creamy cheese, etc.
Using images: Adding images to your menu might depict how the dishes might look at life. In any case, an excessive number of images give out a very negative meaning, as many customers have reported that many cafes and restaurants which use too many pictures on their menus are of very low quality. It is suggested that always use the images of higher resolution and quality, don’t use grainy images. Pay for a professional photographer if need be or if you have other branches. If you are updating your menu, you can use Instagram to see that if any customer of yours has posted photos of your food or mentioned you, you can use their pictures too.
Color scheme: just like colors give meaning to life, they also say a whole lot about your restaurant. Be wise in choosing colors as these might affect the appetite of your customers. Bright colors like orange, yellow,
and red are known to be exciting colors and proven to make people get excited about food. Colors like purple and blue might turn people down, and they might even lose their appetite if your menu contains these hues.
Typo-graphics: the font part is often discarded when it comes to designing the logos and menus of restaurants. It is not a smart move as fonts help facilitate sales and talk about the quality of your food. It is wise to write names of dishes slightly bold and more significant than the prices. Ensure that prices are not prominently displayed as customers will then try to find the cheapest item available. Always use lower case letters while writing the descriptions. Remove any currency sign from your menu as it gives out a rather poor and negative vibe, which makes it less likely for a customer to carry out large orders.
Printing: surf the internet for the regular size of menus related to your café or restaurant. Make sure to print enough menus so that every customer can hold the menu for a couple of minutes until they order something. You can also put your menu online if you are offering home deliveries.
Menus speak a lot about food. An uninspired menu won’t help in facilitating sales, but a well-styled and nicely designed menu will. It will not only boost sales but will satisfy customers too.
Creating a logo
Logos are the symbols by which the customers recognize you and your brand.
Whether imprinted on the business cards, dishes, menu cards, dishes, or on the main signage, your logo attracts customers to visit your venue and order something to eat. Just like an attractive logo appeals to customer, a poorly designed logo drives the customers away.
Smart logos: smart logos contain images, bright colors, and catchy icons.
Picking the right icon: Although food and groceries are the popular logo images, one can also use tableware, chef’s apron and hat, other kitchen related utensils, or an oven/stove while creating a logo for any restaurant.
Picking the right color: This is the critical factor in creating a logo. Choosing the right colors and hues makes the logo of the restaurant purpose-oriented and unforgettable. Use color engineering to check out what colors are best for your restaurant logo. Change parameters, if necessary.
Picking the right font: While designing a logo, if you are using a font, then it must be legible, must match the icon, and shouldn’t contain any small details such as fancy scrolls. Use clean and simple fonts.
Bonus tips: never ever try to clutter your logo with unnecessary items, just chose one component such as an icon or a text; never ever use multiple fonts, go with only two colors, don’t turn it into a rainbow and make sure that you leave some blank spaces on the edges of the logo. You can copy other people’s ideas but don’t copy their design. Creating a logo is a daunting task, but you can totally nail the whole process if you follow our step by step guide. Happy Designing!
