Top Design Contest

Setting the Record Straight

Universal Studios' City Walk Motown Cafe features a nostalgic, double record album-inspired menu that can also be purchased as a souvenir item in the merchandise stores. While the concept works beautifully, the original design did not.

Relying on their experience in creative packaging, Carl Marino and Michael Monteleone of Drew & Rogers, Fairfield, N.J., provided a problem-solving redesign.

The original menu was constructed from three separate pieces manually glued on the inside to form the pockets. "In addition to the seams showing, it just didn't wear very well," noted Marino. "The menus frequently came apart and were prone to tearing—especially the record album-shaped inserts, which caught on the inside tabs when put back into the pockets. Also, the piece was only laminated on one side, which wasn't practical."

First, Marino and Monteleone converted the three-part product to a single piece, printed on one side with a laminate on both sides. Two flaps are then folded over, creating the pockets which require only two glue locations.

Bleeds are built into the design, creating a seamless effect when it is folded over and glued. A generous 11&Mac218;2&Mac253; tab at the bottom prevents the edges of the record albums from catching and ripping upon reinsertion into the pockets.

Since the customer didn't want to make any changes to the look of the cover—a scan of a Temptations album with a muted, fuzzy quality—antiquing was applied in PhotoShop. On the inside, Monteleone choose vibrant colors to set off photos of Motown albums.

"All of the text is done in black," added Moteleone, "and because the customer frequently needs to make changes to food selections, pricing and credit card guidelines, we treated it as a fifth color, creating separate film for the text plate." This way, he explained, only one plate needs to be changed when updates are made.