Five common mistakes in restaurant menus
I have designed dozens of menus, for cafés, bars and restaurants. These are the five mistakes I see again and again.
The menu is the most-worked print piece of a restaurant: the customer holds it in hand and is asked to decide. I have designed dozens of menus, and the same mistakes appear again and again.
One: dense layout. When everything is squeezed everywhere to fit, the customer stops reading, and orders from the easiest spot. Two: dish names that assume too much. A clever name without a description loses the salad that would have been ordered. Three: too many typefaces and too much emphasis, two well-set typefaces beat five.
Four: bad photographs. Better no photo than a photo with the wrong light, the food looks exactly as good as its photograph. Five: a bilingual menu with uneven translation. In tourist areas like Corinth and Loutraki, a clean English menu is added sales, not a cost.
If your menu needs a refresh, bring it to me and I will tell you honestly what it needs, sometimes a re-set is enough, other times a new menu from scratch along with the photography. See menu examples in the portfolio.