The art of a good restaurant menu

A restaurant menu is much more than a printed price list of food. A good menu acts as a showcase for your brand and its layout can entice customers to buy your signature or most profitable dishes. Like any piece of marketing there’s a psychology behind menu design. Follow a few tried and tested rules and you’ll soon see the benefits with more customers and higher profits.

• Use layout to your advantage

While we generally read left to right, top to bottom, studies show that with menus we tend to look at the centre first and then to the top right before scanning normally. It’s also known that people rarely read everything in detail on the first look, but instead scan the items quickly before re-reading items that jump out. Studies also show that the first and last items on a menu are more likely to stick in the mind so these are good places for your most profitable items. You can also make dishes more noticeable by accentuating them with images, borders or larger text.

• Use typography well

The fonts you use send a message about your business, your service and the food you serve. Script styles are often associated with luxury while more quirky fonts suggest a lighter, fun feel. Whatever you go for make sure it’s easy to read, especially when describing the dish and ingredients. You can experiment with more stylish fonts for headings but customers want to see what’s on offer quickly and clearly.

• Be clever with colours

While you might prefer to stick with your corporate colours for branding be aware of colours that evoke certain emotions and feelings. Red is thought to stimulate appetite while green is often used for healthy options. Use colours to bring out dishes you want to highlight but don’t get carried away and use so many colours that your menu looks too busy or hard to read.

• Use professional print and high-quality paper

Remember that your menu will be seen and studied at close quarters as well as being held, so the how it feels is just as important as how it looks. Anything that looks or feels cheap and unprofessional will give a very bad impression of your business and of the food you serve. When ordering your printed menus, specify the type, weight and finish you require. These should be clearly laid out at the quote stage and a good printer will be happy to let you see samples or supply a paper swatch book.

Great design needs perfect print – and that’s where we come in.

At DigitalPrintingIreland.ie we regularly supply high quality printed menus to a wide range of restaurant and catering customers. From single sheet menus and folded leaflets to bound booklets we’ll print your menu on premium uncoated, silk or gloss paper. There are recycled options and beautiful luxury papers too. Whatever your target market we’ll print the perfect menu for your needs. To see the range of sizes, types and papers available, get an instant quote, upload artwork and order your menu simply visit www.DigitalPrintingIreland.ie today.