week 8

To be honest sometimes I really don’t like the menu designs that we are creating. Because clients do not want to spend much money on their menu but they want to put every little information in there. Some of them still want old fashioned graphic style like boxes and bursts while some of them wants very overwhelming and busy layouts. Even though you try to convince the client in order to keep your artistic dignity and/or find reasonable ways to satisfy them, you end up with a design that client approves.

However, this week I have worked on a menu that was really modern, clean, and elegant looking. It was for a catering company that serves mostly in Manhattan. Instead of folded brochure they prefer booklet. As a result of that there were so many white space in the layout. Images on the menu were high quality professional pictures. Even the paper plays very important role when you want to make something noticeable. The typeface, leading, margins… all these elements have their own space without squeezing the other. What makes me surprised more is that Marla designed that beautiful catering catalog. When I first met with her I thought she uses the software very well but she lacks the design skills. However, I realized that under given conditions she can create an artwork as well. This also shows that in the real business world you are not going to get job offers that matches your artistic skills or expectations. I think how picky you can be is related to how much money you need.