Denny’s 2019-2020

One of four designers in Denny's in-house creative team titled crEATe. Created concepts and executed designs for Denny's national menus semi-annually. Art directed off-site menu shoots to ensure production and quality control. Daily creative requests included e-commerce communications, in-store signage, OOH, direct mail and other unique creative projects at a national and franchise level.

Denny’s 2019-2020 National Dessert Menu Cover: Unlike the core menu, there was not a catchphrase chosen to focus my ideation. The idea that ultimately won approval was an extension of the core menu theme “gather around our table”. In this storyline I wanted to focus on a couple celebrating an occasion by saying “cheers” with their milkshakes. The motion of cheers is universally recognized as a celebration and communicated coming together without having to use words. 

Both the core and dessert menu covers were shot over the course of 4 days at a studio in Chiacgo, IL. Prior to the shoot I selected hand models, aided in finalizing menu shipping lists and adjusted menu options for showcase. During the shoot I directed hand models, made placement adjustments of items on table, aided food stylists for changes to plates and ran quality control over images taken. Post shoot I worked with retouchers and chose selects from the shoot to photoshop together for final covers.

Denny’s 2019 and 2020 National Late Night Menu Covers: Denny's revisited their old concept of having a late night menu for their franchised restaurants. They were optional to order and were created to help with food waste and order volume when the stores were understaffed. Denny's tasked me with creating concepts for covers with no budget for a shoot. 

My solution was to repurpose Denny’s 2018 and 2019 Core covers to photoshop different plates together to create new layouts. In order to also create distinction from the core menus I used a “neon” effect to the menu’s text. Neon lights are primarily used in night settings specifically at bars and clubs where a lot of our late night cliental are previous to stumbling through our doors. To create this effect I not only added shading and glow to the text but also darkened the backgrounds of food to help elevate the glow.

Out of 1400+ locations 740 ordered Late Night Menus in our first round launch (shown in full). When polled if they were interested in an additional round of Late Night Menus for the next season majority said yes. In the second launch, 920 locations ordered the Late Night Menu for their franchises (cover shown in progress). This successful set of launches increased sales, eliminated waste and cut costs for not only the franchisees but corporate’s need for shooting another menu.