KAPU

The Problem

Bilingual menus tend to fail in one of two directions: either the second language is treated as an afterthought, cramped into a smaller type size beneath the "real" menu, or the whole document doubles in length and loses any sense of hierarchy at all. Neither outcome serves a guest who is choosing between a starter and a main, not translating a document.

My Role

• DESIGN
• SYSTEM
• PRINT
• PACKAGING

Process

1. 01

   Context

   KAPU operates two Athens locations with overlapping but not identical offerings — seasonal items, location-specific specials, a shared core. The menu needed to hold all of that without either location's guest noticing the seams.

2. 02

   Research

   The working method was closer to editing than designing at first: collecting a season of prior menus, receipts, and staff notes on what guests actually asked about, to find where confusion happened in practice rather than in theory. The most common friction point wasn't language — it was portion and pairing information sitting too far from the dish name to be read together.

3. 03

   The Constraint

   The menu had to survive a same-week kitchen reprint if a dish changed. That single operational fact shaped more of the final design than any aesthetic preference did — nothing in the system could depend on a specific printer run, a specific paper stock ordered months ahead, or a layout so tightly kerned that changing one word broke the whole page.

4. 04

   Creative Thinking

   Greek and English are treated as one typographic voice with two scripts rather than as parallel, competing columns — both languages set at the same size and weight, so a guest isn't choosing a language before choosing a dish.

5. 05

   Iterations

   Early drafts tried a strict two-column split, language left, language right. It read as a document about translation rather than a document about food. A second pass tried interleaving line by line, which solved the equivalence problem but created a visual density that made every page feel like a spreadsheet. The version that shipped groups by dish, not by language, with Greek set first and English immediately beneath in a lighter weight, the visual rhythm holding constant down the page.

6. 06

   Process

   Built as a single system rather than location-specific documents: shared type hierarchy, shared grid, and a consistent treatment of Greek and English so neither location's guest notices a difference in how the menu behaves. The system extends across formats — the core food menu, the cocktail menu, the takeaway flyer, and cup packaging — using the same typographic and structural decisions throughout rather than a one-off look per piece.