I am seeking any and all criticism and suggestions on improving this design.
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Menu Rework Mark I
This project was originally done for Publication Design. The project was to create a menu for an imaginary restaurant that is themed around a specific art movement and artist within it. My topic was surrealism and my artist was H.R. Giger.
The menu is themed heavily around showing Giger's works as the background images of each page. Originally, I had made metal covers. They unfortunately did not work as planned, so I designed a new front cover and front inside cover, and will use the last page "About H.R. Giger" as the back cover with the intention of creating a saddle-stitch binding method. I did little on the interior pages but I did address some issues that might have been confusing for the viewer in various areas.
I am seeking any and all criticism and suggestions on improving this design.
I am seeking any and all criticism and suggestions on improving this design.
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Ian – what I see here is a lot of evidence that you are placing the text sections “into” the photo. That is really good! Now make sure, in these very busy layouts, that no element challenges the headings for attention. I’m seeing a large word “Calamalien” that is fighting with the heading “Starters”. No can do… calm those other elements down, so the layout has a readable and successful visual hierarchy.
ReplyDeleteYour plan for this to become an 8-page menu is a good one. I can bring in a long-reach stapler to assemble the pages – but you’ll need to remind me to bring it when you are ready.
I agree with Coni on the competing elements idea, and add that in addition to size, there is also a bit of color competition going on as well. The "Calamalien" heading is also competing with the background, which is a similar green (at least in that area of the image; the smaller green text seems to be placed in an area where it stands out better), so perhaps in addition to changing size, moving it to one of the darker areas of the image might help. The same with the "Welcome" on the inside front cover; it is a bit difficult to make out against the busy grey/green floor. Perhaps moving it into the shadows above it might help? I will be interested to see the new print layout, now that the metal covers are gone. Looking pretty nice so far!
ReplyDeleteSo at first glance looks great, so I read what Coni had commented so I could learn from her advise and sure enough I saw what she saw. You are close to done; Good Job!
ReplyDeleteIan,
ReplyDeleteI think you've chosen some good pieces for the cover pages. I do think, however that the type could sit better in those designs. I'm not sure what to suggest for the cover, but for the back cover I feel that those two text blocks could fit very nicely into that image with some changes. I would try to further frame those text boxes into that image by lowering them, the bottom paragraphs might have to get adjusted so they don't go over the image. By that point the title would be against the darker value too also being housed in the image.
On the starters page, was there a color with opacity to separate the text from the image? Using that in the other parts of the menu against texture might work. I would base whatever colors you use on the current page's background. They don't need to be a large swatch of color either, the text is already worked into the images pretty well and we don't want to lose that.