By Taeleen Woodard, Director of Creative Strategy, Spectrio
A menu is often the first impression when entering your restaurant. This means that your menu should be considered a vital marketing piece. Putting the time into the look and feel of your menu has the potential to make it a powerful tool to boost sales and generate brand awareness for your customers. Follow/understand these tips:
- Know your audience.
- Know your purpose.
- Get inspired – What’s trending? What grabs your eye?
- Layout matters – Proper balance moves the eye.
- Keep it simple – When in doubt, less is more.
- Graphics & illustrations – If the words are the brains of your menu, consider pictures it’s heart.
- Typography is the art of words and letters, and it is very important. See sizing chart below.
The bigger your screen, and the bigger your font, the further a customer will be able to comfortably read from.
Your menu will consist primarily of fonts, verbiage, imagery and videos. Getting the details right is our job but understanding how they all link together will help us all get from concept to completion with just the right amount of funk. Here’s a few key tips:
- Too many items will leave the space constrained, too few items and the menu could appear unbalanced.
- Menu strategy (bundling options, specials, upsells, etc.).
- Place food primarily on the left board and beverage primarily on the right board.
- Optimize menu design with sales data, highlight impact items.
- Food sells food best; use enticing imagery/motion graphics.
- Video loop per board should be no more than 30-35 seconds long, featuring approx. 3 high impact items.
- Avoid over animating the entire display set-up.
- What are the brand considerations, QSR/Venue type and usage?
- Environmental considerations (color, lighting, texture, style, etc.).
- Boards have the ability to display social and live feeds.
- Use a call-to-action to promote response.
- Aim for simplicity of font/copy types.
- Do not include brand logo on menu board if there is signage already in place nearby.
- Avoid repetition of images/items
Lastly and most importantly, don’t forget to have fun, we’re creating
user experiences! The last thing you want to be is boring.