Exercise: Menu Card Illustration

For this exercise, it asked me to provide an illustration for a sophisticated new fish restaurant, the restaurant was high quality and the design needed to be contemporary. I started by researching current restaurant art and a few contemporary restaurant settings. This just allowed me to get a feel for what current restaurants are doing and how my design could fit into a modern and contemporary setting.

From what I discovered is modern restaurants seem to be cleaner and minimalistic but also rustic as well, from my research I saw a lot of exposed materials such as stone and wood. I thought the whole vibe was fresh and exciting, I feel a lot of older restaurants can feel dated. I also looked at the type of restaurants I would like to eat at, I feel the whole interior of the restaurant can really add to the experience of dining.

I like to see a lot of fresh and green plants around and they really compliment the exposed wood and rustic feel.

From this initial research, I started researching art styles that could complement these interiors. I thought it should be modern and exciting as well. I browsed through Behance to look into other peoples illustrations to give me a reference point. 

This is a project I found on Behance by a guy called Adam Koon, I thought the line art captured the essence of this exercise, it is both modern and contemporary and felt new and refreshing. For me, I did not want to go down the route of highly traditional painting as I felt that  ( whilst they work really well) they are not modern and would suit more traditional restaurants.  

I loved the fluid nature of this art installation at a skate park, I also do like the effect of using Navy instead of black, I think it gives the illustration such a new feel.

I really loved the art style and colour palette for this packaging, I think it looks really vibrant and contemporary, I think the geometric and fluid shapes work so well and the art style is modern, it ties into the sleek and clean look of the restaurant.

This was the biggest inspiration for my project, I have seen such a lot of this art style around recently, I love the colour palette and added texture. I think this piece ties into the modern look with very round and fluid shading. This was a project I found on Behance, it was called Verbeton by Fargo Stuido's. The aim of this project was to show how nature would take back the modern world.

I was heavily inspired by this with my finished piece, I loved the concept of the project and think it was executed so well. However my inspiration was a little less deep, I referenced the idea of combining nature with the modern world. I had the idea of combining the modern elements of a restaurant with the ocean.

I then went to my sketchbook to start sketching out ideas, I started with a small brainstorm, I wrote down the ideas I wanted to express with my branding. I had been watching a series recently on youtube. It was produced by a team of people called TheFutur, it followed the branding process of a new beer company and each step in the process. I used this to help deliver this branding, I paid close attention to how I wanted the branding to feel and the ideas I wanted to present. 

I wanted my branding to feel

 - Delicious

 - Contemporary

 - Fresh

This is when I had the idea of having a table and chairs underneath the ocean, I could have them surrounded by fish and seaweed, there could be coral on the seats etc. I loved this idea and it ticked the boxes. I thought it would be the best way to express the freshness of the food, I feel this illustration showed how close you would be to live fish swimming in the ocean with how fresh the food is. I also feel it would be a fun and quirky idea.

The next thing I wanted to do was establish and art style, the last thing I wanted was for the illustration to look childish as this would be the wrong thing for a contemporary restaurant. To do this I used the research I collected from the previous exercise about a children's book and looked at why the animals looked and felt childish, I feel it was down to how they were drawn and with the colours they used, I wanted to avoid big eyes and human-like features and stick with a more grounded approach. This would appeal more to an adult audience. I also did not want to use strong and primary colours and I wanted to incorporate some texture so they didn't look to clean and perfect. I also think the addition of texture will work well in a rustic and contemporary setting.

On the next page, I started to use images of the ocean and fish to inspire sketches and drawings.

In my sketchbook I experimented also with colour, both with markers and coloured pencils, from this exercise I did like how rustic the coloured pencils felt, they had that desired texture I was looking for. It gave the drawing a grainy aesthetic. I also focused on the style of my fish, I was inspired by Verbeton. I especially enjoyed the swooping and curved shadows and highlights. I also looked into some drawings of a table and chairs and other ocean elements such as coral.

The next thing I did was go to my ipad and start sketching out. I have really enjoyed using my ipad as a creative tool and it has given me such a great platform, I love using new features and learning new things. Working with the layers allowed me to sketch out the different components, I separated them into different colours, and then when I was ready to colour I isolated each layer and illustrated them separately, this was such an advantage to paper as it meant at the end I could move each part around and play with hierarchy.

What went well?

This was my final illustration, I am not as happy with the background colour as I think it can hold its own on white background however I added it the illustration to basically be the water. Overall I am delighted with how this came out. I love the art style and how the highlights and shading just make the image pop. I feel like it is both modern and contemporary and when mocked up on menu's really stands out. I think the overall message as well comes across great. Overall I feel like this illustration works well and if they wanted to use it is a logo they could take on part of it for example the clown fish.

What did I learn?

I was able to to learn a lot about style and how it can impact the piece, because of how this exercise is, it forced me to consider the audience more and throughout the illustration process, I had that in my mind. I also learnt how to be more efficient with my research and decide before the start of the exercise all the bases I want to cover. I also feel within this exercise I had more confidence with my ideas, once I found one I deemed successful I continued with it and developed it further, I feel like this worked well as in this case it worked but throughout if I felt the idea was weak I would've moved on.


What could I have done better?

If I could complete this exercise again I think I would've liked to spend more time experimenting with composition. I felt like once I drew the fish and the table I did not spend time compositing the rest of the elements into place, I just drew what I felt was right, even though they were just side elements they still hold importance. I also would like to enhance the final menu more and play around with the design.