AD | I’m sure most of us have either had birthday plans cancelled over the last few months, whether that be your own or someone closer to you. Now lockdown restrictions are easing and people can go out again, celebrations are an option again. However, many of us are still cautious. It’s my birthday next week and I know I’m in no hurry to go anywhere near a pub/ restaurant/ bar etc any time soon. But with our new freedom, there are more options to celebrate at home. If you are celebrating something at home, you may as well do it properly and get creative. Today I’m going to be sharing how I’d design a menu for an at home event and how you could do something similar for your own event.
Obviously, food is a prevalent part of any event at my house. And it’s something you could have a lot of fun with in terms of design. From menus, labels, allergen tags for plates, dinner table placements – there are lots of ways to get creative.
Creating A Menu for an at home event
I’m planning this hypothetical menu under the assumption this is a self serve event, and due to distancing, there’ll be no table placements and more like random chairs scattered around the back garden. But that means that the menu should be extra clear so people know exactly what they’re getting.
I love clean and simple designs. Plain black and white is a little boring, so we’ve opted for a foodie photo for the background colour and a neutral colour for the text background. And the text is plain black so it’s easy to read in contrast to the other colours. Then I finished off my menu by going to Font Bundles and downloading some fonts free* to give it a little personal touch and fully customise it.
Choosing the fonts
This is tough. I really like soft handwriting style fonts. They’re pretty, delicate and are generally soft and easy on the eye. However, they’re also a lot harder to read, which isn’t ideal. As a happy medium, I opted for handwriting style fonts for my heading and cleaner fonts for elsewhere.
The heading
Using a handwriting style for my heading is less of an issue for a few reasons. Primarily, the font is obviously larger so it’s easier to read anyway. And, let’s be honest, people are paying less attention to that than they are the descriptions of the food and are less likely to care how clear it is. I used Le Discussioni, which I think is beautiful. It’s soft, and I don’t think it’s quite as difficult to read as some handwriting style fonts can be sometimes.
Subheadings
As we get further along, it’s more important that people can clearly read what everything says. For my subheadings I’ve used Stockport. It’s a block capital font, with good spacing and a sans-serif font, so it’s very clear to read. For everyone. It fits in with the minimal vibe, it’s chic. And it was exactly this moment I realised no one but me is likely to care about that, but there’s fun to be had in the design stages.
The meals
Have you ever gone to a restaurant where there’s a dish listed and then the description is in the tinies serif font that is literally impossible to read under those dim restaurant lights? I hate that. And while I’m pretty sure my garden wouldn’t have the same issues on a July afternoon, I wanted to make something I’d actually want to see elsewhere.
I thought about using Stockport again, but decided to switch it up a little bit. For the individual dishes, I went for Chlakh. It’s still sans serif block capitals that are clear and easy to read, but it’s also slightly less spaced so it looks a bit more like body text than a heading and adds a bit of contrast.
What do you guys think of my clean and simple menu? You may not have a menu to design, or particularly care too much about creating one if you’re planning a home event. But you could play around with designing invites for just about anything. You could even use it to plan out something you’d like as a physical invite to get a better idea of what you’d want for a future event. Nothing planned? You could always add a new font to your blog or use them for pins too!
Which of the fonts featured is your favourite? Do you agree that serif fonts are nicer but harder to read?
Until next time,
Sophie
I love this post! I think creating a menu and making it more fun for an evening with family or friends is such a creative idea and a way to make it more interactive and something different! Thanks for sharing your ideas and the fonts!
That’s a lovely menu that you’ve designed Sophie! I love the fonts and I think they really stand out x
Lucy | http://www.lucymary.co.uk
Great post! Thank you for sharing! I love this idea and I want to try it soon!
This idea is so cute! My family and I did a ‘Come Dine with Me’ week during lockdown; it was really fun and we designed our menus similar to yours. Thanks for sharing!
Paige // Paige Eades
I loveeee this post (especially a low-key font geek haha!) Always a fan of a sans serif, so has to be Stockport for me. Also really like the idea of creating a menu like this, so perfect for special occasions during lockdown! <3
//teandtwosugars.blogspot.com xx
Love this idea! Restaurants are opening up again but I’m not ready to eat out yet, so it would be fun to create my own menu for dinner at home, especially if there’s a birthday or other celebration coming up!
I’m coming to your party with this kind of menu 🙂 Everything is so well thought out.
http://www.fashionradi.com
Delicious ❤
I love the menu idea, so cute! I miss entertaining and feeding people 🙁
Ooh I love the look of this menu!
I need to create some like this if ever I have people over for dinner! ☺️
Love Lozza x
http://girlygabble.com
Your menu is gorgeous! I’m a fan of a handwriting fonts for a heading as long as they are easy to read for titles. Otherwise, I like a nice friendly easy to read font for the body of the message. Thanks for sharing.
I never thought of creating a menu. Maybe I can plan a surprise meal for my family with some of your menu tips. Quarantine has us missing going out, so thank you for sharing this!
Oh wow. This looks like an awesome menu! So much fun for a stay at home dinner night! Those cookie dough balls sound right up my alley too!
This is great, have never made a menu before but, this is really helpful x
Such a good idea. The menu looks really good, the different fonts work well together.
What a cute design! I love it!
xoxo
Lovely
http://mynameislovely.com
This is so pretty. Thank you for the inspiration. Actually, we are building the menu for our cafe next to the tiny house and this is just what we needed to get our brains going. Thanks!
I love the idea of this! I saw so many people doing a ‘Come Dine with Me’ style evening over lockdown but we never did and now I think we need to! Thanks for sharing!
Tash – A Girl with a View
What a fun idea! I’d love to try doing this next time I have friends over, it must be fab seeing everything coming together. Thanks so much for sharing these tips xo
Makeup Muddle
Oooh! It is so cool when people create menus for their home event. Looks so fancy! It is so important to keep it simple. You don’t need a whole maze of a menu hehe. I love your menu – it came out really nicely. This is also perfect when you want to also warn guests of potential food allergies too. Thanks for sharing!
Nancy ✨ exquisitely.me
Loving your simple menu, and I love the heading font. I love scrolling lettering that I can actually read, because I hate those menus where I have no idea what anything is.
Stockport is an awesome font that looks like it would blend so well with many different backgrounds, based on what I see here. 🙂
What a lovely menu idea! You picked some really nice fonts! 🙂
Hope that you are having a great weekend 🙂 We had our first birthday party yesterday after the relaxed restrictions and it was so much fun!
Really liked your fonts, colors etc…your menu sounds delish!! Any room in your garden for 1 more?!