Just Chill Menu Design
I just finished my fall semester of graphic design classes and wanted to show the work I did for my Intro to Computer Graphics class. The assignment was to design a menu for a fictitious ice cream company called Just Chill.
Requirements
Incorporate the shop name and ice cream into the logo.
The brand needs to appeal to both millennials and children.
The message and tone is modern, youthful, and feminine.
The logo must fit into a square for easy posting on social media.
The Logo
I chose pastel colors and a cursive script to convey a feminine feel in meeting the requirements. The logo is made of simple geometric shapes, in the flat design style, brought together to make a more complex shape. This communicates a modern yet youthful aesthetic to appeal to both millennials and children. Ice cream, as well as the company name, is incorporated in the logo, which fits nicely into a square, as requested.
Brainstorming ideas for the logo incorporating the shop name and ice cream.
My pick for the logo.
Color palette and typography
The logo design
Creating the Menu
First I sketched out some ideas on paper, drawing from our tutorial design for inspiration. See the sample tutorial I completed.
Sketches for the menu design
I ended up taking elements from both thumbnail menus that I liked and putting them together for the final design.
I went with the bicycle picture for the background on the front of the menu since the logo already featured ice cream; I felt a photo that also featured ice cream would be too repetitive. The bicycle photo is also a nice pink color which matches the branding, a large portion of the top of the photo is also just the metal wall, so it was not too busy but still had some texture thus making it a good background. I added a white, partially transparent rectangle behind the logo to help increase contrast against the logo since two of the ice creams would have been pink on a pink background otherwise.
The front menu page
I added the size, cup or cone, and flavor assets from Illustrator and used a marble background image. I added the cups of ice cream photo to the bottom of the third page, retouching that picture in Photoshop to change the color of the marble to better match the other marble background. I used the directional feather to help blend the two assets as well as make the flavor text more readable where it intersects with one of the ice cream cups.
Ordering options
For pages four and five, I added two photos and some text with the company headline. I decided to keep it simple here and not add more menu options like in the thumbnails since having too many options can sometimes feel overwhelming. I wanted the focus to be on the ice cream.
Images I edited in Photoshop that helped convey the brand.
Finally, for page six, I repeated the background photo, white transparency, text pattern from the front page to promote consistency but with a different photo and text.
Back page with the shop’s business information.
Note: I was having problems with the images and vectors showing up pixelated when I used the Publish Online feature in InDesign even though I adjusted the resolution and image quality settings. I found this article to be helpful in fixing the problem.
