It is not just the food, but even restaurant menus are getting creative. While it is a fact that a fun, original and imaginative menu card can make a good first impression on someone about the personality of a restaurant, it also conveys something about the attentiveness and attitude of the people running the business. It shows clearly that not just the food or decor, but even restaurant menus can be visually striking and a conversation starter, or more importantly, a marketing strategy too! The menus by itself serve as an advertising element for the restaurant and that is something to be capitalized on. Instead of simply printing a boring list of dishes along with their prices on a sheet of paper or on a blackboard haphazardly, a mesmerizing menu is crucial for the brand identity of the restaurant.
Restaurant menus can be designed in any of these ways: elegant, modern, quirky, colorful, monochromatic, simple, elegant, vintage styled or contrasting. They must be attention-grabbing, organized, convenient and easy on the eye with their display of photographs, prices along with the details of the restaurant. Here are some of our favorite restaurant menus from around the world that we gush over. See, if you can add some more to this list, or better still, get your creative gloves on and design a masterpiece yourself!
- A chalkboard art approach to the menu card
- A newspaper-inspired design for an appealing black and white menu
- A modern menu design with emphasis on strong visual appeal
- A pop-up menu book with colorful visuals and interactive elements
- A fan-opening menu with multiple layers
- A transforming menu that customers can turn into an origami art piece
- A puzzle page menu that little kids might enjoy playing with and ordering from
- A Japanese folding fan which holds all the details of a menu
Restaurant menus are part of the entire package of the business that includes the decor, cutlery, brochures, websites and billboards of the company. A certain harmony between all these elements is essential. The ambiance and atmosphere of the restaurant should be reflected in the menu. In the limited space available in a restaurant menu and the little attention span that customers provide to these pages, restaurant menus must be distinctive and try to impress the viewer at the first glance itself. It must be made memorable and must remain etched in the minds of the reader.