So I use ONE big trick that I find makes my menus look a little better. I overlay two transparent panels of slightly different sizes ;) It creates a neat border effect at almost zero effort and can be tweaked easily. Other than that, it's just deciding how you want your text to look and aligning it. My main menu at this time:
NOTE I am by no means a UX/UI expert lol... I work next to one and she's awesome but it's not my strength for sure :)