Bitter Sweet Cafe
Menu Design
A menu design for an anime themed Japanese Cafe.
Brainstorm a creative concept for a cafe backed up with research and insights on the objective for this business.
Learn and practice layout design fundamentals.
Objective
This project is to conceptualize a cafe or restaurant that I will be creating a menu design for. I was tasked to conceptualize the cafe’s objective, target audience, and menu items.
I then was tasked to create a logo for the cafe alongside a menu reflecting off the cafe concept I have decided on.
Project
This business named Bitter Sweet Cafe is a Japanese cafe that is based in San Francisco’s Japantown intended to support bringing Japanese culture through the use of anime media. Bitter Sweet Cafe serves baked Japanese sweets that are well known through anime or Japanese culture with choices of coffee drinks.
The target audience for this cafe are for teens and young adults that have grown up in the boom of anime coming to the United States in the 90’s.
The cafe’s aesthetic is chic and Japanese minimalism reflecting off the Japanese culture and provide a calm space for the customers.
Concept
Deliverables
Logo Design
Black & White
Colored
Knock-Out
Menu Design
Menu Design
For the menu, I decided on using brown throughout the whole design. Brown is associated with a lot of chocolate flavored desserts, baked goods, and coffee. The uniform of brown and use of white supports the cafe a mood of a chic-styled cafe.
I Illustrated an anime girl wearing a button up shirt and black pants. The clothes I chose is with the association of bakers and people that work in dessert shops wearing black and white. Illustrating an anime character helps associate the cafe with anime and provoke a happy mood to the customers.
In the inside of the menu, I created vector illustrations of the menu items providing a fun visualization of the baked goods and drinks.
Front Cover
Inside Page
Inside Page
Back Cover
The colors I have chosen for their colored logo are beige, brown, and pink resembling the flavors of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. A colorful logo helps give an outgoing mood to the cafe associating with the different flavors of sweets and a bright look.
Logo Design
The logo I designed is a checkerboard cookie with the kanji for “Bitter” and “Sweet” with Bitter Sweet Cafe’s business name below.
I decided the checkerboard cookie would be the cafe’s main item on their menu and is a recognizable baked good associated with Japanese culture.
Black and White Logo For black and white print.
Colored Logo For Colored print.
Knock Out Logo For dark colored background print.
These are the in-progress work before the final designs of the project. During this phase, we were instructed to explore and practice our creative process.
Preliminary work
Software Programs
Adobe Suite Programs:
Indesign
Illustrator
Photoshop
Other Programs:
Clip Studio Paint