Graphic Design for Restaurants in Qatar
Opening a food outlet in Qatar means commissioning about nine pieces of design in six weeks, usually while also negotiating a lease, hiring a kitchen and waiting on approvals. Most owners buy them separately, from whoever is available, and end up with a sign, a menu and a takeaway bag that look like three different restaurants.
Fixed prices below, and an opening package that covers the set.
The problem, specifically
Around 1,200 of Qatar's roughly 2,950 food and beverage outlets are independent rather than franchised. A franchise arrives with a brand manual covering every one of those nine items. An independent arrives with a logo somebody made and a printer's phone number.
The cost of that shows up later. Packaging that does not match the signage, a delivery bag with a stretched logo, and seasonal artwork improvised each Ramadan because there is no system to work from.
What a new outlet actually needs
Signage
, shopfront and interior, bilingual, built to the landlord's or mall's specificationMenus
, print and digital, covered on the menu design pageTakeaway and delivery packaging
, which in Qatar is a large share of volume and a large share of how the brand is seenIn-store collateral
: table talkers, specials boards, counter cards, wayfindingStaff uniforms and aprons
, artwork onlyVehicle artwork
, where delivery is run in-houseSocial templates
, so the account does not start from nothingSeasonal artwork
, principally Ramadan and Eid
Some of that is available as one package. The identity with collateral at QAR 11,500 covers the brand, a menu or brochure, signage artwork and vehicle wrap artwork, which is the bulk of an opening.
Packaging is the most-seen asset you own
Worth separating out, because it is consistently underestimated in Qatar.
Delivery runs through Talabat, Snoonu, Rafeeq, Baladi Express and Keeta, and for many independents it is the majority of orders. That means more customers encounter your brand on a bag on a kitchen table than ever walk through the door.
Packaging artwork also has constraints a poster does not: it prints on brown board or plastic where colours shift, it gets folded across the artwork, it gets grease on it, and it has to survive a twenty-minute journey. Designing it as though it were a flat printed page produces a bag that looks nothing like the proof.
The seasonal calendar
Ramadan
brings in more than any other period, and the artwork has to exist six weeks before it starts: iftar and suhoor sets, family bundles, packaging inserts, in-store, social.Eid
lands straight after it and spikes harder than anything else in the year.Qatar National Day, 18 December
, is worth seasonal artwork for restaurants that mark it, handled as participation instead of as a marketing device.June to August
thins the customer base as expatriate families travel, and trade falls away. It is the right window to rebuild the brand system instead of the moment to improvise.
A restaurant with a template system handles all four in an afternoon. A restaurant without one commissions each from scratch, which is where the annual design spend quietly goes.
What this involves
- Brand identity or extension of an existing one
- Signage artwork, bilingual, to your fabricator's specification
- Packaging artwork built for the substrate it prints on
- In-store collateral
- Social templates your team can edit
- Seasonal artwork or the templates to produce it
- Two revision rounds, then QAR 350 each
- Source files on final payment
Produced by the production network, briefed and signed off by Arbaz. Nobody here shoots your food, prints your bags or fixes your sign to a wall: existing photography gets prepared and improved, and a Doha shooter and fabricator handle the rest.
What this costs
| Service | QAR |
|---|---|
| Brand identity with collateral, the opening package | 11,500 |
| Brand identity only | 6,400 |
| Logo only | 2,500 |
| Menu design, print and digital | 1,600 |
| Signage or vehicle wrap artwork | 1,800 |
| Social graphics kit, 20 editable templates | 2,100 |
Printing, fabrication and installation are billed to you by your Doha supplier. Other service lines are priced on the pricing page.
Questions we get asked
We are opening in eight weeks. Is that enough time?
For the design, yes. The constraint is usually signage fabrication and landlord approval, which sit with your supplier and can run longer than people expect. Start signage first and the rest follows comfortably.
Can you match our existing branding?
Yes, and that is usually cheaper than the identity price because the system already exists. Send whatever you have, including photographs of the current signage.
Do you design packaging that we print locally?
Yes. Artwork is supplied to your packaging supplier's die line and specification, which is worth requesting from them before design starts rather than after.
What if we only need the signage?
Then buy only that at QAR 1,800. The opening package exists because most new outlets need the set, not because it is compulsory.
If you have an opening date
Say what you are opening, when, and what already exists. If you have the landlord's signage specification or a packaging supplier's die line, send those too.
Signage has the longest lead time of anything on this page, so start there and the rest follows comfortably.