Over the years we’ve had the pleasure of working with many clients that are based in and around Saddleworth. Working with local businesses, entrepreneurs and start-up companies, we have seen the real benefits and growth that comes with having a professional design team on board. Quality design is not something that only large national and international companies need – in many ways investment in good design is even more crucial to local businesses.

Small Business Branding

If you’re just starting up a business, professional design materials can convey a sense of stability. If you’ve invested in professional design services it will reassure your clients or customers you’re serious about your business, and about the services and products that you offer. Professional design and marketing materials make your small business look larger, enabling you to build a brand that’s larger than “just you”.

DIY design

It can be tempting for small companies to do away with professional designers entirely, thinking it’s better value to do their marketing materials in-house by the IT people, or find a friend to do it on the cheap. But any short term gains that businesses think they have made will be offset against the long term damage, and loss of business that amateurish design can cause.

Graphic design professionals are not interested in making things pretty, they aim to increase market share and grow your business. They have experience and know what works. Only by working closely together can you really benefit from the results that professional design can deliver.

Saddleworth Design

Over the years we’ve had the pleasure off working with many businesses in a variety of sectors, in and around Saddleworth; included IT companies (Aspect IT), health and nutrition (Eat Right UK), educational (Focus Education), finance (The Trusted Partnership, Landmark), security (Royle Security), as well as the World Whistling Champion himself – David Morris!

To see some examples of client work click here >

Why is it so difficult to choose what we want, surely it’s not THAT hard? Clearly there’s something fishy going on – some conflict between head and heart.

Presentation is everything

A restaurant’s brand is more than just its logo, every point of contact that customers have with the restaurant is an opportunity to show its unique personality and benefits. A menu can be one of the first points of contact that people have with the restaurant’s brand, so it’s important that it is well-designed and communicates the right message.

But is there more going on with the menu design than simply the branding? Are there secret psychological strategies going on beneath our very noses?! As well as the marketing and branding aspects of the design, as menu designers it’s also our job to get you to pick the more expensive items that are available – this helps the restaurants profitability and bottom line. But how do we do it?

Seek and you will find (maybe)

One of the main techniques menu designers use is to make it hard for you to scan the menu to find the cheapest prices. Having the prices conveniently aligned in a column to the right means you can quickly scan up and down the menu, comparing prices – which is not what the restaurant wants. This makes it easier for diners to make their choice based on price. It’s better to have the digits and pound/dollar signs discreetly tagged on at the end of each food description. This may not be applicable to all restaurants and menus, some actually get rid of the pound/dollor/euros symbols altogether. Not exactly subtle is it, but according to the psychological experts, this works, and helps ’soften the prices’.

But everything sounds so good!

As for layout and positioning, our eyes are naturally drawn to the top, and then right, so it makes sense to put the most profitable items there, as this will catch readers’ eyes and retain their gaze. The less expensive items should be harder to locate so you have to read through the mouth watering descriptions of the more expensive items first.

Another popular technique is to have an expensive item (or items) that you know not many people will go for. Relatively speaking this makes all the other prices seem less expensive – which some people equate to a better deal. A lot of these techniques are not exclusive to menu design, they are are well known sales tactics that are used in many brochures and catalogues, or anywhere you have multiple list based items and pricing.

Of course none of these tricks can actually make you choose the more expensive items, but they can help nudge you in the right direction. So the next time you are staring down at the menu, just remember who’s really deciding what you want to eat.