The backstory for this project is sweet. The client proposed to his wife at this restaurant in New York City and wanted his vintage restaurant menu cover restored as an anniversary present for her. From research online, McGinnis' seems to have opened in the late 1930's and closed in the late 1960's.

The original was very faded and scuffed, so the restoration required quite a bit of work — often pixel by pixel — working with small areas at a time.

The original was probably printed on heavy white card stock. We liked how it had aged to a rich beige color and decided to sample that color and keep it for the background.

Click the art above for a larger view. Actual size is 10.25" wide by 15" tall.

The original menu was printed in two spot colors, using a halftone for the bottom "wave" section (those teeny little dots in the background of this close-up). This made the "Famous for Sea Food" script unsalvageable. Photoshop just couldn't pick out the halftone from the letters — everything was too blurred to target only the text. No problem: I simply redrew the type in vector illustration software by hand and placed it into the finished art (below).