Help your customers – and your sales with our printed food menu design tips

A well-designed menu is much more than just a price list. In Ireland we love our food and there’s certainly no shortage of choice when we decide to eat out or order in. Many establishments don’t recognise the importance of menu design. That’s a shame, because following a few simple design tips can have a real impact on your sales:

• Try to avoid price alignment
• Take care with pics
• Placement is king

Try to avoid price alignment
Most restaurant, bar or cafe owners don’t want customers to simply scan the menu for the cheapest items and there are a few tricks you can use to avoid the price scan:
Don’t align the prices – doing so makes them easier to scan quickly. Avoid using the € symbol too and think about dropping the second decimal point for cents; so instead of €17.19, your price reads simply 12.5. Never make your prices bolder than the item or colour them in a way that makes them more noticeable and don’t rank meals from high to low (or low to high). Instead, mix them up.

Take care with pics
It’s generally accepted that there are only two ways to go when it comes to pictures on menus – go large or don’t use them at all. People don’t buy food just because there’s a thumbnail pic of the dish on the menu. If you do go for a big impact image, use a professional photographer. Every picture used on your printed menu must be nothing short of superb. And never use stock images unless your dish matches the image perfectly.
If you do decide on photography for your printed menu, keep it to one or two great, high impact images.

Placement is king
Whatever format your menu takes, prime food items should be placed in the top third and centre of the page – that’s where most people look first before continuing to read to the right. After that, they’ll revert to a more normal left to right, top to bottom reading pattern. Something many people do when handed a menu is look at the back cover, so this is a great place to put specials.

At DigitalPrintingIreland.ie we’ve been printing restaurant, bar, cafe and fast food menus for customers for 30 years. We offer seven flat sizes from A5 up to A3 and you can choose from four different folding options as well or have your menu flat. Your printed food menu can be laminated so that it wipes clean and you can choose from our full range of papers including our stunning luxury range. Click for a quote and you’ll be taken through all the options. It’s easy to upload artwork and order online. Simply visit
www.DigitalPrintingireland.ie and get your beautiful new printed menu today.