This project was a submission while I still attended SSU. The project was to design a menu layout for a fictional restaurant called TexMex. The restaurant was an American adaptation of Mexican style cuisine, located primarily in the southwestern part of the United States of America. The style and feel of the restaurant was completely open to interpretation. All of the content was provided and was to be included without any exclusion.

When designing this menu, I wanted to draw from my past and adapt the TexMex restaurant to something I knew. I adapted the feel of the restaurant to that of a family-style, kid friendly establishment similar to that of any Skyline Chili restaurant (since I worked there off and on for over 5 years). I knew the menu had to be playful and colorful as well as include some sort of mascot as opposed to logo. I used a cactus to tie the mascot to the designated area and the attire: a cowboy hat as both a nod to the idea of “western,” sunglasses and mustache, as a way to make a prickly plant transform into a fun, inviting host. The vector design around the edges of the menu prompted the feeling of a child’s birthday party decorations but in a way that still felt appropriate to a southwestern style restaurant.

The text was kept to a traditional treatment as to not distract the reader from the content. Headers were embellished to create divisible sections within the content and prices were highlighted due to importance to the audience.