Casa Antica – Menu Design & Print Preparation

Designed for the table.

A restaurant menu has a simple but important job: help guests find what they want quickly, comfortably, and without unnecessary confusion.

For Casa Antica in Heiligenblut, I developed a complete menu layout that combines the restaurant’s visual identity with the practical demands of everyday service.

01 / The Brief

The goal was to create a menu that feels consistent with the restaurant’s brand while working smoothly in a busy hospitality environment.

That meant balancing:

• readability

• page structure

• clear navigation

• visual consistency

• practical handling in a physical format

A menu should make a strong first impression, but it also needs to stay functional after hundreds of real-world uses.

02 / The System

The layout is built around clear sections, a consistent typographic hierarchy, and controlled spacing.

Dish names, descriptions, and prices each have their own visual role, helping the eye move through the content naturally.

The main focus was on:

• fast navigation

• clear separation between categories

• strong readability

• consistent price placement

• balanced page composition

The result is a system that stays calm and organised even when a page contains a large amount of information.

03 / From Layout to Print

The design was developed around a physical menu holder rather than treated as a purely digital layout.

From the beginning, the final printed object was considered in the design process.

This included:

• margins

• binding space

• alignment

• safe areas

• page proportions

• export and print settings

The layout system was created in Affinity Publisher, supported by additional vector work where needed.

The goal was simple: what looks good on screen should still work once it is printed, assembled, and placed on the table.

04 / The Result

The final outcome is a complete restaurant menu prepared for everyday use.

The project connects visual identity with the less visible details that make print design reliable:

• proportions

• consistency

• alignment

• legibility

• spacing

• clean file preparation

Good design is not only about how something looks in a mockup.

It also needs to work after repeated use, page turns, quick decisions, and real service conditions.

The Detail That Matters

Good print design should work where it is actually used:

at arm’s length, under real lighting, and in someone’s hands.

That is the point where a layout stops being just a design and becomes part of the restaurant experience.