Nicholas J. Fanelli         

Below are four links for various .pdf files for my final project for my graphic design class at the University of Iowa. Though I unfortunately cannot find the official final edits for each file, these samples were one of the last edits I made before finalzing my project.

 

For this assignment, I wanted to incorporate my love for cooking and my dream of one day opening my own restaurant by creating a business card, a full menu, a take-out menu and of course, a cocktail list. The name of the restaurant itself is called "Jo-Anna's" where I incorporated the two biggest influences in my life when it comes to cooking: my mother, Joann and my grandmother, Anna.

 

1. To create  the business card, I took a painting of an Italian country side and cropped it into the perfect business card side. From there, I added text for the restaurant's name using the Green, White and Red color scheme of the Italian flag. Under that, I incorporated a brief description of the restaurant and used the address/phone number from one of my favorite Italian restaurants, Arenella, which unfortunately is closed now. To the right of the name, I created my own Italian flag by using 3 separate rectangles shaded with the corresponding colors of the flag. From there, I created a brief slogan that I believe fully incorporates what Jo-Anna's would be about.

 

2. For the menu, I used an image off of Google Images of a small town in Italy where my grandfather was from named Trivigno as the background. From there, I created a transparent look to the photo by changing the opacity of the image in the background in order to make the foreground images and text pop out more. At the top, I added the "Jo-Anna's" logo and slogan/flag to kick things off. After that, I created uniform grey boxes to be used as the backdrop of the text itself in order to help make it more legible on top of the image underneath. The menu items themselves and their descriptions were taken from Arenella's own menu while also adding some of my own personal recipes such as the Risotto con Pancetta and the Arancini. I also changed a few of the dish's names to incorporate members of my family based on their love of the specific meal. For the text, I decided to continue the trend of incorporating the Italian flag colors by alternating between Green and Red for each specific set of menu items. The images of the dishes themselves were also off of Google images and I just incorporated them in varying angles to help add a sense of fun to the overall feel of the menu. 

 

3. For the Take-out Menu, I used the same image of Trivigno by doing the same changes when it came to the transparency and opacity of the image. To be a traditional take-out menu I had to change up the layout of the text and images so it could be printed and folded accordingly to create a full-fledged take-out menu which is why the order of the first page is reversed and the second page is upside down. I used the same dishes, descriptions and photos as used in the traditional menu. 

 

4. Last but not least, I created the one thing every restaurant needs, a cocktail list. To start, I took a stock image of an Italian wine cellar that included a wine barrel, bottle and full glass of red wine. From there, I decided to use plain white text to help contrast the darker look of the background image as I did not want to create a transparent feel as I did with both the menu and take-out menu. To me, the contrast and color palate of the image was too unique to change in the same was as the background images of the menus. Like the menu's though, I did use the same list of items that was shown on the traditional Arenella menu. However, I incorporated a slight change my naming the signature cocktail list to honor my brother, Michael, as he is the family bartender.