How to Design a Fictional 1920s Speakeasy Menu and Cocktail Guide Using Claude and Midjourney

Step Back into the Roaring Twenties

There is something uniquely satisfying about holding an artifact that belongs to another world. While digital mockups are fine, the real magic of generative design happens when you use modern tools to manufacture physical nostalgia.

If you are tired of building generic landing pages and corporate slide decks, it is time for a creative palate cleanser. We are going to design a fictional 1920s speakeasy menu and cocktail guide. Set in a smoke-filled, subterranean London club in 1925, this project combines the sharp historical wit of Claude with the lush, textured, vintage aesthetics of Midjourney.

By the end of this guide, you will have a ready-to-print, two-page layout complete with illicit ingredients, Prohibition-era slang, and gorgeous Art Deco illustrations. Let's dive in.

Step 1: Architecting the Lore with Claude

Before you render a single visual, you need to know who runs this joint and what makes it tick. A menu is not just a list of drinks with prices; it is a narrative canvas. In 1920s London, speakeasies (or "blind pigs") were hotbeds of bohemian artists, bright young things, and shady dockworkers.

To build a cohesive identity, we will use Claude to establish our venue: The Blind Peacock. We want the menu items to reflect a mix of genuine vintage cocktail ingredients and slightly absurd, fictional lore.

Open up Claude and run a prompt designed to establish the vibe. Avoid generic instructions; give the LLM specific historical constraints:

> "Act as an expert historical novelist and graphic designer specializing in the 1920s. We are creating a two-page menu for 'The Blind Peacock', a hidden basement speakeasy in Soho, London, active in 1925. Generate five signature cocktail names that use genuine era-appropriate spirits (like Bathtub Gin, Absinthe, and Italian Vermouth) but are named after fictional scandals, local characters, or slang of the era. For each cocktail, write a cheeky, two-sentence description in the voice of a cynical bartender, listing the ingredients and price in pre-decimal British currency (shillings and pence, e.g., 2s 6d). Keep the tone sophisticated, witty, and distinctly British."

Claude will generate brilliant snippets of character-driven copy. You will get items like The Whispering Duchess (bathtub gin, lavender honey, lemon juice, and a splash of stolen champagne) priced at a scandalous three shillings. Copy these raw texts into your scratchpad. We will use them to populate our layout.

Step 2: Visualising the Art Deco Aesthetic in Midjourney

Now we need the visual identity. The 1920s were defined by two major art movements: the bold, geometric luxury of Art Deco and the gritty, hand-carved feel of letterpress and woodblock prints. We want our menu to feel like a high-end, slightly worn piece of ephemera printed on heavy, yellowed cardstock.

Midjourney is excellent at mimicking vintage printing techniques, provided you avoid modern graphic design buzzwords. To keep your style consistent, you should lean heavily on stylistic modifiers like "linocut print," "risograph," and "Art Deco gold foil."

Try this prompt structure in Midjourney:

> An Art Deco botanical illustration of a peacock, vintage gold foil on dark charcoal paper, geometric borders, linocut print style, subtle paper texture, 1920s aesthetic, clean vector-like design, minimalist composition --ar 3:4 --v 6.0

If you find your images are looking too modern or overly digital, you can find brilliant style reference codes and layout templates in our prompt generator. For troubleshooting rendering issues or getting weird artifacting on your exports, head over to the Midjourney Support Site to check on active model bugs.

When choosing your images, look for assets that leave plenty of negative space. You will want clean areas where you can overlay your text later in a design tool.

Step 3: Designing the Menu Layout

Once you have your assets, it is time to bring them together. While you can use standard publishing software, we recommend setting up a quick canvas to assemble the pieces.

To create an authentic 1920s layout, follow these typography rules:

1. The Header Font: Use an elegant, high-contrast Art Deco display font (think Park Lane, Market Deco, or Bernhard Fashion) for the speakeasy name.
2. The Body Font: Keep the drink descriptions highly legible. A clean, early sans-serif like Kabel or a classic serif like Caslon works beautifully to ground the vintage aesthetic.
3. The Grid: Art Deco layout relies heavily on symmetry and double borders. Use thin, parallel lines to frame your menu sections.
4. The Palette: Stick to three colours max. A deep charcoal or midnight blue background, a muted antique gold for the illustrations, and an off-white cream for the readable body text.

If you are looking for definitions of specific typesetting terms or layout principles, our glossary is a great place to brush up on design jargon before you start editing.

Import your Midjourney botanical illustrations as background elements, lower the opacity slightly to ensure text legibility, and paste in the copy we generated with Claude.

Step 4: Adding the Final Touch of Authenticity

To truly elevate this project from a digital mock-up to a physical artifact, do not leave it on your hard drive. Print it out.

Go to your local art supply shop and pick up some heavy, textured cream cardstock (around 250gsm to 300gsm). If the paper looks too pristine, you can age it manually. Brew a strong cup of black tea, let it cool, and lightly brush it across the edges of the printed paper with a dry sponge. Once dry, run a fine-grit sandpaper gently over the corners to simulate decades of handling by Soho's elite.

You now have a physical, narrative-driven piece of alternative history. It is a brilliant portfolio piece, a fantastic conversation starter for dinner parties, or simply a testament to what happens when you push generative AI past boring, corporate utility and into the realms of pure, unadulterated play.