Take Me Away #1 March 8, 2009

They are ubiquitous. They are innocuous. They are horrible! And it seems like ten come through my door every week. Take-away menus are a black hole in graphic information design. Stock photos of greasy chicken burgers and cans of Pepsi matched with bright colors and horrendous fonts, the menus more often than not are all selling the same thing. The challenge is thus to make a menu that stands out. How do you do this? One tactic is to use as many photos as possible. Another is to use offensively bright colors. And then there is the choice of fonts, and themes. Sometimes the menus even go as far as to put personal touches, such as photos of the men who slave over grills and use electric kebab cutters to create perfect strips of rubber-band like meat. However, it seems that the best way to make your establishment’s offerings stand out is to use every technique available.

I will be examining more as they fall through my door. Here is just a taster menu.

Hippo Pizza and Curry has a notably overwhelming menu. Equation like offers (Pizza+Chicken Wings+Garlic Bread+ Can= £8.95), two telephone numbers, they serve pizzas, curries, burgers and kebabs. All in all, there is just too much going on at once. Choices include the fantastically named “Hippo’s Egg” Pizza, topped with mushroom, fresh tomato, egg and sweet corn.

The real criticism to made here is of the fact that it can’t decide whether floating food is better than food photographed on a table. In fact, some off their food photography is truly horrific. What I can only presume to be the Tandoori Chicken just looks like a skinned calfs head with antennae growing out of it.

Kebabish-Southern-Fried-Chicken-Free-Deilvery-Express. Ahhh! I don’t even know what this place is called. The menu is a mixture of red and metalic silver, something the scan doesnt fully capture. Not only does the place seem to do everything, but it does so much that it seems to have forgotten itself. It seems to think that you too cannot make up your mind and might order one of the riddiculous set meals. SFC Meal 4 - 4 pieces of chicken, large lamb doner, fries toped with salad and a choice of sauces £5.50. It also has the option of “Full roast chicken, salad and sauce” £3.50. Really there is no other place I ever need to go.

One panel has bullet points after saying the “Real Kebabish”
- “First and only Traditional Kebab House where everything is cooked in front of you!”
I want to know what they do in other kebab houses… and also, how will it be cooked in front of me if I am ordering from home?
-”We’re the Real Thing”
Respect! Yo, this shit aint mickey mouse! fo’real
-”Don’t Confuse Us with Others of the Same Name”
At this point I am really getting confused by the use of bullet points
-”Beware of Imitations”
Why didn’t they use an exclamation point here?

Notably this menu also has the best food montages I have seen yet. Much of the high quality imagery is flipped and repeated. But my favourite actually manages to look like a city scape with hills in the background.

Persia, the final in today’s series, offers the best menu ever! Also a convoluted menu, serving everything, Persia has an honesty that makes it almost endearing.

What is most notable is its choice of happy people eating the food. Eighties woman likes pizza, nineties child does too! And there is the great yuppie couple dining alfresco with wine. She is eating number 34, Hawaiian Burger and he is waiting for his number 2, 12″ Pizza Della with extra doner meat. And whilst these photos may seem slightly off, they are at least plausible. After all, people of all classes, colours and creeds enjoy the odd Doner Bun with garlic sauce. The menu gets really weird when you look at the extra pizza toppings section. This is illustrated by two photos of babies with large heads. There isn’t much more to say, except for pointing out the levitating pizza slice!

Trading on the power of suggestions, it becomes comical sometimes to look at what the places might think you will actually eat. If you can be arsed, please send us some more terrible menus!