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How To Design A Cocktail Menu
Creating your own cocktail menu isn’t as simple as placing a bunch of pretty drinks onto a page. There’s an art to crafting a cocktail menu that will encourage your customers to step outside their regular drinks round in favour of something a little fancier. Without taking time with your cocktail menu design, it will likely go unused by your customers. Which, with cocktails being a great money-maker for your bar, isn’t exactly the outcome you’ll want.
Now, we’re not a bar. We don’t even serve mocktails. But where we may lack in alcoholic expertise, we more than make up for in design experience. Although we can’t tell you whether to feature the pornstar martini or the strawberry daiquiri, we can tell you how to design a cocktail menu that compliments your bar or restaurant.
Prep Your Menu Design: Your Chosen Cocktails
Before jumping into your cocktail menu design, you of course need to know which cocktails you’ll be including. Knowing the number of cocktails you’re going to be serving will be a life saver when it comes to designing the layout of your cocktail menu.
Are you only serving a handful of drinks or is your menu pretty extensive? Do your drinks have long, fancy names and taste descriptions? Or are you sticking with the classic, punchy names your customers will be familiar with?
Gather together all your drink creations and see how much you have to work with. You’ll never know, you might end up needing a 16-page booklet instead of a simple single-sided menu.
Gather Your Ingredients: Photo’s Vs Illustrations
Getting the perfect cocktail photo is just one of the many pleasures of drinking with the girls on a Friday night. The lighting. The angles. The little fruity décor on the side of the glass tilting at a perfect 45 degree angle. It’s very serious business.
When ordering cocktails from your bar, your customers are going to want to know what the drinks actually look like. Not only will it help them decide which drink best fits their Instagram aesthetic, but lovely images of your drinks will encourage your customers to treat themselves this time round.
So, how should you show your customers what your drinks look like?
Photographs Are The Real Deal
Using real photographs of your drinks is a direct way to show your customers what each of your cocktail creations looks like. With professional lighting and camera equipment, you’re bound to snap some great shots to use with your cocktail menu design.
We’ve found that the best time to use photographs is when creating a more complex menu, which features cocktails that your customers may not instantly recognise. We all know what a mojito is, but how many of your customers will be able to describe the appearance of your signature “cool island breeze”?
Illustrations Add A Flare Of Fancy
Cocktail illustrations are a great alternative to the cocktail photograph. From beautiful line drawings to bold and colourful vector images, there’s plenty of choice for your cocktail menu design. Hiring an illustrator to design your illustrations is the best way to avoid using the same menu templates as your competitors and provides that personal touch to your menu.
When working with illustrations, keep two things in mind: do these illustrations look like my cocktails and do they fit the theme of my bar? There’s no point in using some beautifully illustrated drinks if they look nothing like the real drinks served in your bar.
How To Design A Cocktail Menu
With the cocktail list and imagery finalised, it’s time to begin the cocktail menu design. To give you a little helping hand with your cocktail menu design, we’ve crafted a short 3 step guide on how to design a cocktail menu.
1. Pick The Theme Of Your Menu
The first thing to decide is the theme of your menu. Will your cocktail menu match your other bar menus? Is this menu designed especially for summer or will it be used all year round? Do you prefer a menu that’s large and in charge or a menu that’s a little more sophisticated?
Narrowing down your theme will also narrow down the fonts, colours, and imagery to have access to use. This isn’t a bad thing! It’s best to get rid of the clutter so you can cherry-pick only the best elements for your cocktail menu design.
2. Add Your Cocktails - Layout Matters
The layout of your cocktail menu is crucial to its success. Cramming all your drinks together is off-putting and having too much white space is boring. Instead, think about how you can creatively arrange your drinks while keeping the attention of your patrons.
Are there any cocktails you want to promote above the rest? Maybe you have an in-house favourite or a special deal running on a couple of your cocktails. Highlighting these drinks is a great way to not only make your favourites stand out but also create some variety in your menu layout.
Try not to go too overboard with promoting each of your drinks. Anything that may potentially make your customers feel overwhelmed should be avoided at all costs.
3. Pick Your Pricing
Last but not least, the price. Your customers will be wanting to know the price of your cocktails before deciding to buy. Make sure that the prices are easy to see, if your patrons cannot see the price, they may assume that the drink is outside their price range.
If you’re offering any special deals, make sure that they shout out from the page. Who doesn’t love a deal, especially on cocktails? Whether you host a happy hour at your bar or 2-4-1 drinks on a Saturday night, make sure to include it on your menu design.
We Can Design Your Cocktail Menu For You
When running a busy bar, the last thing you need to be spending time on is designing your cocktail menus. At Aura Print, we have over a decade of design experience that can be used for your next cocktail venture. To employ a member of our lovely design team to create your cocktail menu, get in touch with us today!
