River Cottage Menu: Type Hierarchy

After doing some research into menu design I have begun experimenting with how the type is displayed on the menu to make it as easy and clear to read as possible.

 Firstly I kept all the type the same size but separated it onto two lines with dots to link the food with the price. Looking at a menu designed like this no meals stand out to me and it feels like a lot to look through. The "Bigger" meals have been separated so that the main part is first in 11pt and underneath in 10pt is the food that it comes with. Using different point sizes makes it easier to read as there is less to take in at first - you can easily see "grilled pollock" and then what it comes with is secondary information. This will make browsing the menu a lot easier.

 

Developing it further I have made the first line bold so that it is even clearer. The price has been made smaller so its not the first thing people look at, it keeps their attention on the meal options.

 

 After editing the rest of the food to match the mains I stood back to look at the menu and the amount of bold hits you. I wanted to break it up a bit better so that the separate categories were clearer and easily identifiable.

 Removing the bold from the type means that only the headings are bold, this makes it easier to differentiate between the options. The main food is now in regular and what accompanies it is now italic - this works but just not as well. 

After figuring out how the type is best structured I moved on to the layout. The menu works quite well in two columns as it keeps all the information together opposed to being spread across a page. Working with the logo in the top centre makes a lot of unusable white space either side, it also makes the information about the lunch menu look heavy and squished. 

I moved the logos position to the top left instead, this leaves a lot more room for the paragraph. I decided to redesign the logo using a similar font (Bree Serif), as the original logo is quite dated and harsh. 

 The logo size has been increased and the lunch paragraph has been moved to the bottom right of the page. Lunch Menu has been added inline with River Cottage so that it is clear what meal this menu is for. The line space between the meals has been increased to give each option more space, it has also helped to make the different sections clearer.  I have added two lines either side of the titles, as you can see above soup, smaller, bigger and sides are now clearly displayed and easy to read.

 

The menu layout is a lot easier to navigate around. I tried working with the typographic logo but it looked messy in the design, I decided it would look a lot neater if I rewrote it. I have kept the same colours as the logo design and the font is in a very similar style as the menu would have to work amongst their other produce and branded products.