MAD MONKEY CHINESE CUISINE

Typography II
Menu Design

Year
2024

Programs
InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator

Skills
Research, Grid Systems, Printing

Mad Monkey Chinese Cuisine is another fictional brand that was created from a combination of names and restaurant types that were arranged on a list. This was a project for my Typography II class at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design and my task was to create a menu that was typography-dominant with 7+ levels of hierarchy. This project taught me how to use complex grid systems effectively and organize sets of information into a design project.

Problem: I was tasked with creating a menu for a fictional restaurant using names given from a list that I could choose from. This menu had to be type-dominant, have 7+ levels of visual hierarchy, and use complex grid systems to depict the menu items in a clear and ‘skimmable’ way. This menu then also needed to be printed on paper that would be cohesive to the restaurants aesthetic.

Solution: I picked ‘Mad Monkey’ as my restaurants name and decided to make it a Chinese restaurant. I began by making a mood board and then began coming up with color palettes, researching Chinese and Americanized Chinese dishes to create a list of menu items that could populate the menu, and then organized them into sections. I then sketched out menu layouts, paired typefaces together that represented Chinese culture and found edited photos of monkeys to act as textural elements in the background of the menu. I also created a traditional Chinese border that was supported with visual effects to match the aesthetic of the rest of the menu and incorporated Yanzi behind the identity mark that says ‘Mad Monkey, Chinese Cuisine’ to give an authentic, traditional look to the menu and add an additional layer of heirarchy. This was then printed on glossy paper.