Looking into how a restaurants currently brand themselves and the product range will be essential for me gathering a final selection of deliverables.
Above we can see how a restaurant might utilise a range in terms of a 'set', pieces that work best when brought together as a whole. This helps enforce a strong brand conscious, it can also help make certain objects collectable if working as a series, the cutlery coasters are a good example of this. Looking at this in terms of print, we can see how changing the colour of a stock with a plain black ink can be an effective way of adding variation to a range without increasing the costs. If you were instead to create a range where the inks needed changing for each individual it might take a more substantial bite from the budget.
Creating a successful range means a strong sense of conviction and consistency throughout the products. This can be simple touches such as a running colour palette down to the choice of stock, all these considerations must be made with constant referring back to it's suitability with the context and the restaurants ethos.
The victorian aesthetic:
Considering my chosen theme and how to best portray that in printed form.
Typography:
Vital considering the brief is to create a type themed restaurant, nailing this will make or break this project.
Most examples of victorian posters and printed works I could find had a strong typographic focus and were most likely printed using a letterpress method. The above example from 1878 gives me plenty of examples to work with, I'm also interested in the tone of the stock being off white and the use of black with one spot colour.
Decorative types such as these were also very popular at the time and may have been used to give something the look of elegance and extravagance. The use of a shadow to create a 3-D effect can be seen in many examples of victorian typography, this could work nicely in a display font for things such as the restaurant logo and pieces for the interior spaces such as large wall areas.
Packaging examples:
(Modern packaging examples in victorian style)
Reflections:
The victorians decorated type frequently. This is something to be aware of and something to keep in mind when designing for this restaurant. Also the use of letterpress needs to be present in order to back up my context effectively.
The amount of typefaces used in one piece doesn't seem to be as much of a concern to victorian print makers and designers as it has become these days. That's something I'll need to make a firm choice on when beginning visual investigations of my own.
