The Menu Project
“The Brown Book” – that’s how we always refer
On and on it went. We started in 2011, and over
to the first menu we designed. Technically it’s the
100 menus later (113 to be exact), we can now look
“Chicago Homegrown Cookbook Dinner” menu – a
back on a creative, curious and inspiring collection of
mini-cookbook that served as the menu for a dinner
work. This book takes you on a tour of our favorite
to celebrate a bigger, real cookbook. The dinner
40 menus, illustrating the story of The Menu Project.
menu featured recipes developed by Josh Kulp and Christine Cikowski, the chefs of Sunday Dinner Club, and custom photography by Brendan Lekan, all neatly packaged in a textured brown paper cover with hand-sewn binding. It had a silver label and showcased the unique, quirky handwriting of Sunday Dinner Club’s sous chef Amy Hoover. It was collaborative, beautiful and bespoke; exactly the type of project we loved to do. And we were hooked. Next dinner up – Beef Shortribs. We had an idea right away: a letterpress printed diagram of a cow and the different cuts of beef; each course would be in a different cut. We hadn’t planned on doing any more menus. The Brown Book was a one-off thing; a fun project to flex our creative muscles. But... we already had the idea. And... it would give us an excuse to fire up the Showcard Press…
Along the way, we focused on two things: the audience and our ideas. Will this be engaging for guests — will they want to take the menus home and hang them on their refrigerator? Will the menus enhance the experience of the dinner and provide a reminder long after the courses are finished and cleared? And is this the best representation of our idea? Does this use a new technique, skill, or piece of equipment? Will we learn something new from this? Two of our core values at Kitemath are Creativity and Curiosity. Each menu idea needed to tick those boxes. We explored papers we hadn’t used before – semi-gloss linen cardstock to create oversize playing cards, shimmery gold metallic to create a radiant Harvest Moon, and white, embossed wallpaper for a tactile, tone-on-tone texture. We stretched an electronic cutting machine’s capabilities to its limit, beyond its comfortable role in the scrapbooking world – how else would we “die cut” 75+ Thai lanterns or a limited run of classic 45 paper records and sleeves for the Pitchfork dinner? We were curious
“ When we enter the dining room, we are always in suspense. We know in advance what dishes will be served, but it’s only when we sit down and pick up the hand-crafted menus that we get a full sense of what the evening will bring. Thai paper lanterns hang from a centerpiece of branches for an Asianinspired menu. Seed packets, as if from a garden supply store, foretell a menu of spring vegetables. For an Italian dinner, canned tomatoes bear printed labels describing each course. Kitemath’s menus are displays of artistic design that perfectly complement the dining experience, always in unique and unexpected ways.” – Carl and Nadia, Dinner Club Guests
“ The menus are such a big part of the experience. They are a nice ice breaker, which is key since you’re sitting at communal tables with people you don’t know, but also enhance the dinner theme. I generally never save any kind of tchotchke, but still have the menus from the vegetable dinners in 2015, which are paintings of beets, tomatoes, eggplant and other veggies. They look like really cool garden markers. I also kept one from one of the Mexican dinners in 2012; it’s printed on vellum, and looks like it should be wrapped around a candle or something. Pieces like that really stand out in a world of super-plain menus that don’t have anything to say other than to list the food.” – Chandra, Dinner Club Guest
about patches and wanted to learn more about
We figured out the ideal pattern for sewing
the production side – why not make a menu that
spaghetti yarn on a printed fork so that it looks
included a patch? We pushed the boundaries of
natural (as natural as yarn “spaghetti” can look).
what a “menu” is – why can’t an Italian dinner menu
We discovered that corrugated cardboard edges,
be a tomato can label? And we questioned where
when stacked together, look really cool – and
a menu should be – does it always have to be
kinda like dirt rows.
at a place setting? What if we made it part of a centerpiece and it was an interactive experience?
We used sandpaper, baker’s twine, and bubble wrap. We bought a laminator, a perforator, and the
We learned that in order to secure the front and
aforementioned ear tag applicator. We worked with
back of sequentially numbered pig ear tags, you
comic book artists and food photographers. We
needed a special tool. We learned that our inkjet
collaged, colored, cut, folded, burned, hand-lettered,
printer does an amazing job at printing double-sided
and stuck a fork in it.
– better than our big fancy laser printer. And its flat, matte ink coverage looks just like a paint swatch. We learned juuuuuust the right amount to heat a metal brand with a blowtorch so that it makes its mark without burning the paper (side note: we also learned that branded FiberMark SuedeTex paper smells like BBQ). We learned how to fold a three-dimensional cube and a cootie-catcher. The best way to apply a temporary tattoo. And that using a cordless drill is a quick way to make braided wire.
It feels natural to end here with “We did it all!”. But we didn’t do it all – not even close. Every time we thought “we can’t possibly think of another menu idea”, another Burger menu, another Pizza menu – we did. Above all, we learned there is no limit to ideas and creativity.
“ Over the last decade, I’ve collected many Kitemath menus to commemorate the wonderful meals at Sunday Dinner Club. The menus are always incredibly inventive, reflecting the food itself in form and design – a favorite is the Italian dinner menu that mimicked a canned Italian tomatoes label. From the New Year’s Eve menu with a functioning Ball Drop, to the original Honey Butter Fried Chicken placemat menus, each design is memorable in a way that added charm and fun to the experience.” – Lauren, Dinner Club Guest
the menus
As guests entered the dining room, they were greeted by ornamental vase centerpieces, filled with flowering branches and a hanging menu lantern for each guest. Lined with gold embossed paper and adorned with Thai lettering and iconography, the interactive menus immediately set the tone for an authentic and exciting culinary experience.
We numbered the menus to indicate the handwork and craft that went into each piece. We took numbering to a whole new level with this theme – purchasing sequentially numbered livestock tags to not only hold together the menu components but also number the series. We only found out after we ordered the tags (and days before the first dinner) that they required a special tool to apply. We’re more prepared now the next time we have a use for livestock tags!
Tired of hearts and cupid themes, we took Valentine’s Day in a totally different direction. The Colors of Love Collection swatches were printed with an Epson Stylus Pro 3880 on matte paper to mimic the look and feel of your standard hardware store paint swatches.
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a classic American Chinese restaurant menu? Lamination (at least that’s what we thought of). Full disclosure: maybe it’s because we wanted an excuse to buy a laminator.
We’re a design firm, so we know a thing or two about branding. But this time we made, like, a real brand (not that logos are fake brands, but you get where we’re going here). What we didn’t know about real branding was how long you had to heat it with a blowtorch and how it makes the right kind of paper smell like BBQ. Now we know a few more things about branding.
The Pitchfork dinners were small, single-date dinners, hosted once a year to celebrate the wrap-up of the annual Chicago music festival. This afforded us the opportunity to dream up more complex and time consuming menus since we only needed to produce an edition of 30. One of our favorites took the form of a classic 45 record complete with a die-cut sleeve.
Taking a cue from to the flags that adorned the stages at the Pitchfork music festival, we shrunk them down to table-size versions and strung them across each guest’s place setting. The perfect way to set the stage for the dinner experience to come.
It was winemaker Curt Schalchlin’s first time visiting our great city for a collaborative wine pairing dinner and we welcomed him in style with this custom poster and menu. We got layer happy in Photoshop and created a view to remember.
The newly minted Honey Butter Fried ChickenÂŽ logo was debuted at this dinner. We hand lettered the menu items to form the place setting and put the emphasis on the bold, graphic chicken at the center.
This New Year’s Eve menu featured an interactive holographic ball-drop above the “Chicago” skyline – complete with a count-down.
Insert fork here
[ “Okay guys. The menu is Big Steak. Any ideas?” “How about a big, cartoon-style, Flintstone-esque steak?” “Let’s stick a fork in it and we’re done.”
Pizza naturally lends itself to the patch format – it’s already a circle with a built in crust! Add some toppings that secretly spell “pizza” and put ‘em on a paper paddle.
Like pizza, burgers were a recurring menu theme that required a new idea each year. The burger swatchbook created a conceptual, deconstructed burger out of bold paper colors and a corrugated cardboard patty.
Sunday Dinner Club’s Cassoulet had gathered such a cult following over the years, it’s a wonder no one had gone so far as to get a tattoo to show their love and devotion. We remedied that by printing temporary tattoos for guests to apply and show their (albeit impermanent) dedication to cassoulet.
One of the classic foods in Jewish culture is the matzo cracker. And they’re square – like menus. Hey, they’re perforated, too! That’s how Kitemath ended up with a perforator.
We take every opportunity we can get to work with other creatives – especially folks who do stuff different and better than us. Comic book illustrator Mike Freiheit + Kitemath + ridiculous plot line involving life size lemons and a face-off with an umami-monster = awesome comic menu.
At some point, Sunday Dinner Club decided that instead of working on NYE, they wanted to enjoy their NYE – enter “Not-NYE” dinners hosted on December 30. This gave us the opportunity to completely turn traditional NYE themes on their head. We married cootie-catchers with Mad Libs to generate Not-NYE Resolutions. Let the hilarity ensue...
[
Insert string here
I guess we have a thing for forks (Big Steak menu), this time in the form of a big forkful of yarn spaghetti – yum! It’s surprising how much experimentation goes into getting the right pattern so the yarn spaghetti looks “natural”.
The annual vegetable dinner highlights, you guessed it, vegetables. Each table featured a planter box, complete with corrugated cardboard “dirt” and full-grown, watercolor “vegetable” menus ready for picking.
Self-imposed challenge: create a three-dimensional cube menu that didn’t require adhesive. Three flat strips, fourteen scores and folds later, we dropped our ice cube cocktail menus into rocks glasses and toasted to our success.
Our second foray into patch making and this time we showed our love with a heart-shaped burger and tone-on-tone stitching.
]
Insert photo here
Always pushing the interactivity boundaries, this NYE menu featured a space to customize your menu with a mini Polaroid photo taken at the dinner and provided guests with a memento to take home.
For the Mexican dinner menus, we used the menu itself to shift the ambiance of the environment. The translucent candle menu was a source of information, decoration and illumination.
While we didn’t push this concept too far and actually attempt to print on the sandpaper (I can hear the printer groaning now), we did welcome the opportunity to use sandpaper to add a tactile element to the New England dinner menu.
Who said menus have to be flat? Or obvious? This is neither and it’s a guest (and Kitemath) favorite.
Moving more into the realm of art, we created a series of one-off collages using varying textures, papers, fabric and techniques. We scanned the artwork, added the menu information, and printed copies for dinner guests.
“And the winning ticket is…!” Guests at the Carnival Food dinners were entered into a raffle with their individually numbered ticket strip menus. Bright colors, perforation, hole punching and a little elbow grease – they look pretty convincing.
Just as we thought, guests couldn’t help but pop the bubble wrap on the back of their Champagne Pairing dinner menu.
As guests sat down to the Pizza dinners, they were welcome to grab a slice – of their menu. Although not as delicious (or edible) as the forthcoming Sunday Dinner pizzas, the menu pizzas featured custom cut “toppings”, paper “cheese” and “sauce”, and cardboard “crusts”.
The food itself had smell and taste covered. And the menus tapped into sight and touch. The vegetable seed packet menu covered the fifth sense – hearing. This was the only menu that incorporated sound – the subtle shaking of the seeds in the packet was an unexpected and fun surprise.
Desperada wine labels have an ethereal, dreamy feel to them and for this wine pairing dinner we evoked that same feeling in the menus – black and white photos printed on kraft paper with silver and white hand-colored elements. The finishing detail: menus were edged with copper tape for a tactile feel and aged look.
Fall Harvest dinner + Greek food theme = a Pegasus weather vane. The menus were printed on shimmery gold cardstock with a flat black mask to emphasize the glowing harvest moon.
We had a lot of fun printing out nice, clean copies of the Street Food dinner menus on newsprint – and then crumpling them up. That’s the first and only time guests were greeted with trash on their plates.
It’s December 30, and the ball is not quite ready to drop. We’ll give it until tomorrow and then it should be juuuuuust right.
At the All Grown Up dinner guests got to play with their placemat (but not with their food!). We created custom illustrated activities that upon completion revealed the menu items. Table centerpieces featured Legos, Rubiks Cubes, Etch-a-Sketches and crayons.
The complexity of the numerous steps and nuances that go into making a great bowl of ramen is contrasted by this stark menu design. Using only the negative shapes and gorgeous Japanese paper, the menu is striking and simple.
Dubbed the “Burger Stoplight” menu, we designed panels of circular photographic ingredients that, when folded, create a complete stacked burger. But when open, it’s a deconstructed visual display of individual components.
In case you were curious…
WHAT IS KITEMATH?
SPECIAL SHOUT-OUTS!
Kitemath is Chicago-based design studio established in 2002 by husband and wife Chris Jennings and Jen Mayer. We’re alchemists, builders, connectors, clarifiers, and conversation starters.
Josh and Christine…
» Find out more at kitemath.com WHAT IS SUNDAY DINNER CLUB? Sunday Dinner Club is a dinner party-ish experience that currently operates in the great city of Chicago with chefs Christine Cikowski and Josh Kulp at the helm. Menus change monthly, and each menu centers around a theme and highlights locally sourced ingredients reflective of the current season. Dinners are held 10-15 times a month and seat up to 24 guests... and the dinners are not just on Sundays. » Find out more at sundaydinnerclub.com
For giving us the opportunity, creative freedom, and latitude to design what our hearts desired and whatever we could imagine up. You trusted us to mirror in the menus the care and love that you put into your food. Kelly… For translating the experience and details of the menus through your amazing photographs. You brought your mad skills, ideas and inventiveness to every shot of every menu in this book. The Kitemath team… For the endless stream of ideas, for patience and tenacity, and for your enthusiasm for the The Menu Project and the realization of this book. Extra loud shout-out to Kelsy Postlethwait and Bridget Murphy. Your creativity and input were invaluable.
CREDITS…
PRODUCTION SPECS
Kelly Allison
Printing
Menu photography
Cover................... Printed on a Fuji Acuity in UV White, and Interior............... Printed on an HP Indigo at O’Neil Printing in Phoenix, AZ
» Find out more at kallisonphoto.com Tyler Mallory
» Find out more at oneilprint.com
Cover, endsheets and “the menus” page photography
Binding
» Find out more at tylermallory.com
» Find out more at roswellbookbinding.com
Brendan Lekan
Paper
Brown Book – food photography
Amy Hoover
Cover................... Gmund Savanna Bubinga (111# Cover) mounted to Strathmore Premium Mahogany (160# Double Thick Cover) End Sheets ...... Mohawk Chromolux 700 High White (9.5 pt Cover) Text Pages....... Mohawk Options Smooth 100% PC White (65# Cover)
Brown Book – handwriting
» Find out more at mohawkconnects.com and legionpaper.com/gmund-savanna
Mike Freiheit
Font
Comic Menu – illustration
Alright Sans by Jackson Cavanaugh of Okay Type
» Find out more at mikefreiheit.com
» Find out more at okaytype.com
» Find out more at brendanlekan.com
Exposed Smyth Sewn binding by Roswell Bookbinding in Phoenix, AZ
“ What amazes me as I look back through the menus is the memories they trigger. Of course I remember the menus themselves – they’re always so much fun and so full of joy – but they also immediately help me remember the big and little details of the experience. I can remember the friends (and sometimes dates) that I brought along, the strangers I met, the wine and beer we shared, the flavors of the dressing on the salad or the mustard smeared on the side of a bowl of cassoulet. I don’t remember restaurant menus, but I remember every one of these. That’s a remarkable thing.” – Mike, Dinner Club Guest
© 2017 Kitemath LLC Kitemath LLC is not affiliated, endorsed or sponsored by Sunday Dinner Club “Honey Butter Fried Chicken” is a registered trademark of Honey Butter Fried Chicken LLC