Drinks Menu

I was going to do typefaces at my next post but i just did this and while its still fresh in the memory, ill do it now.

The drinks menu was an unusual one as i didnt want to take anything away from the sushi menu i created therefor this cant be a weird shape, i was thinking about just updating the current YO! Sushi drinks menu which is this..

This isnt much work on this. Couple of rounded rectangles, a visual of a cat with a speech bubble, a logo and URL, title with images and on "Fizz" theres bubbles. I dont like this its boring, plain however it does read well but i want mine to look amazing as this is Amsterdam and it needs more creativity.

This is my first try at a drinks menu, theres no text but it will be the same fonts used in the menu.

This is what was in my head... Not very good at all but i thought it would look good, i tried to put the waterfall in but it doesnt looks right, i then developed it more and got this..

Using the bottle as the title was an experiment and it didnt pay off, it doesnt look good, i put the city which is on the mural behind the boxes but its too hard to see and it will ruin it if it stays like that.

What am i doing its the same layout and still nothing better than the original...

Ok new idea!
Going with this a new world theme mixed with japanese and amsterdams nature side i decided to do a menu with life, the first idea i had was instead of having rounded rectangles why not have flowers and they come up on their stem and the go into a flower. Not being the best at drawing and not having much hope in this idea i played around in illustrator and got this...

They have a japanese style to them and fit with the current style of the mural. When i did this i thought where would the text go? it could go in the flower but may be hard to read when the flowers are next to each other, the other idea is to have the boxes on top of them but that would destroy my design... ill try another way.

I decided to make the menu a 3rd of a a4 sheet therefor it stands well with the menu.
The menu now smaller gave me a new idea, the idea is having a tree on a very small island in water, the tree goes all the way up and the boxes go in the tree. Its a different world in this YO! Sushi and this idea is much more creative and art-y.

This is what i came up with, its still unfinished but i think im going to stick with this...

Menu

Ok get ready cause this post is my whole menu development and ideas, lets hope it isnt long..

I wanted to have a menu that had something different about it, it had to be a "woah" when you pick it up, rather than just pick it up and see what you want, i want a pause in between them two stages where the customer admires the menu.
Rectangle shape? Square? It has to relate to Amsterdam.. Something todo with water? no. I started looking at other menus to get inspiration but im not going to show any as none inspired me, i then think about the icon making in my direct mail which i didnt use and i thought i could use the shape of the house i created for the menu. The icon is in the direct mail II post.

Ok, i got the shape and so now it should be easy just to fill it in.. I then download the YO Sushi menu and wow its huge and it kind of ruins my idea, my house was thin and long and the amount of food they sell, it wont be able to fit on never the less im going forward and it should work.
The scale i started with is that the height is the same as A4 and the width is half A4 so one folded open its the same size as A4.

This is my first attempt at some sort of grid system..

I tried this them thought about a 2 column grid but i thought that would mean excess pages and it would be too little information on one page. I printed this out so i could see if the text was readable, the text is about 6pt and is just readable so i might have to enlarge my scale.
I re looked at the YO Sushi menu and they have a menu for sushi and a menu for hot food so i decided to have two menus but just do one as they would be the exact same apart from title colours and content. I got to the decision of two separate menus after seeing that one menu would be too thick due to the mass of food YO Sushi sells.

As ive done the mural and the mural the style doesnt need much research as im already there so i went straight in and did the front and back of the menu...

The back is an abstract design based on the plate colours, this page would be blank so why not brighten it up. The front is of a typical Amsterdam house and is in the same style as the mural, instead of having the YO! logo in the corner i incorporated it into the design by having it as a sign in the window. Im pretty happy with the results as i have printed this out and it looks awesome having a little house sat there.
I started to think about what will be in the menu. In the YO sushi menu it goes in this order:
1.How to YO! -  2.sashimi
3.Maki/futomaki - 4.iso
5.Nigiri - 6.gunkan (nigiri goes over onto gunkan page)
7.Hand rolls - 8.Salads
I wrote it like this so i could see it as double page spreads so i could see the prints needed e.g. 2 back to back prints and a single page back to back. (includes front and back)

With my style i cant just have one type of sushi because the gap would be too big so i would have to put 2 types on, my layout would go like this:
1. How to YO! - 2. Sashimi & Maki/futomaki
3. Iso & Nigiri - 4. Gunkan & Handrolls (reverse these two so Nigiri can go over to Gunkan)
5. Salads - 6. Design
This layout is the best ive come up with as i did have m few more but this has the best amount of pages when it comes to printed because its just 2 double pages back to back which is easier to put together.

Anywho the design...

1st attempt
This is the How to YO! page and an example of what each page layout will look like. I continued the strip across the title but think it doesnt look professional, the how to page is a redeveloped version of the original. I changed the type face (will post my typefaces in next post), i changed the writing font - Tahoma to a new slim Walkaway downloaded from Dafont.com and free to use, the new font looks much better than Tahoma.

2nd attempt

I updated the first attempt and gave it a more creative feel as i want to have the theme of "enter our world" an have this yo sushi as another world especially as its in Amsterdam. I moved the title down and left aligned it with the subtitle underneath, reduced the title font size and made the how to page look much better. The menu has a nice look to it and the food looks much better by being represented by nice visuals and fonts around it. I decided to have either full blue speech bubbles or white with blue outline as in the YO! Menu they have all orange and white with orange.

The menu looks great and it fits YO! Sushi well, its friendly, fun, creative and its unique. Luxury without the cost (the goal of YO! Sushi).

The development for the rest of the pages are more of "if there's space then ill put something there" as there is so much food some pages there is no room. Before i started designing the other pages i realised that when it comes to print the pages will be in different order and i have learned from past experience this can get confusing so i decided to design in that sequence, now when it comes to print i will already be prepared.
This is the rest of the pages..

This is the 1st page on the left and the last page on the right, i decided to put this design inside therefor i need a new design for the back of the menu.

This is the 5th page on the left and 2nd on the right, this is because of printing but you can see i have put a visual on the last page (salads) to fill in the space, it advertises the companies social sites and i put it at the end because it seems like a better place rather than being in the middle and anoying you when your looking for food.

This is the 3rd page on the left and 4th on the right. I had to reverse Gunkan with handrolls because the nigiri goes over to the gunkan page and to cooperate that i put i long line in going from the nigiri section to the gunkan. There is a small visual which has the japanese woman saying about YO!'s contribution to saving the planet by not using bottles.

The front you have seen and i have not doe the back yet.

Im still concerned about the size but if it comes to it ill print it a bit larger, i was thinking of putting something in the blank tops of each page apart from that im pleased with the menu and it was a risk to do it like this rather than the obvious rectangle or square but i think it may pay off.