Our first Remixed basket sign (could, and will, be worse)
WEEK 22 – Stateline Kroger Revisited, Set 2
Finally, here it is: our very first close-up look at how the rest of the department signs we’ll be seeing in this stour are butchered under Remix. (Get it? “Butchered,” because this is the butcher counter? Okay, true, I dislike it anyway, but I thought that joke would at least mask my distaste a little bit :P )
As you can see, literally all the quote-unquote “remodel” does is remove the curved railing with the existing “fresh meat” lettering*, and replace it with new stick-on letters reading “MEAT & FISH.” The dark-colored basket signs like this one get white letters; the blonde wood signs we’ll see later get dark letters. And that’s that.
Again, as I wrote earlier, it seems like we’re progressing from best to worst in this tour. So, while this is our first example of a basket sign reuse, and the ultimate point I’m trying to get to is that the basket sign reuses look bad overall, this specific one actually looks somewhat tolerable (or at least more passable than others) because the length of the phrase “MEAT & FISH” actually stretches long enough to fill the entire basket – so, as a result, there are no centering issues. For smaller phrases such as “DELI” or “DAIRY,” the remodel crews in theory should work to center the letters appropriately on the signage – but as we’ll see, that often does not turn out successfully, sometimes to very, very bad effects.
It also doesn’t help that in some cases, the nature of the Remix décor package itself means that it’s asking for very thin letters such as a capital “I” to be affixed at a point where it turns out there’s actually a gap in the basket sign – notice that they just barely avoid that issue here, with the “I” in “FISH.” That’s just bad design, imo. The shapes of letters can be finicky, and at this size and with those gaps between the sign beams, finding enough points to affix the putty to to make sure the letters stick can be a challenge.
All of which, again, is why I feel like reusing the basket signs is much more trouble than it’s worth, and negatively impacts this décor in more ways than one: there’s the cheap-looking factor (with the letters just stuck flat on there), the décor personality factor (with the reuse of the basket signs and the issues that that presents, concerning both the lack of separate, more inventive wall signage, as well as the brown-on-brown look that this department has going on now), the practicality factor (with the difficulty of installing the letters and subsequent implementation failures)… etcetera.
* -- Almost forgot to explain the asterisk here: just wanted to briefly note that this store was unusual in that most Bountiful stores already went ahead and said “meat & fish” on the department sign, whereas Stateline here had just “fresh meat,” as shown in that linked image. So, Remix has actually brought the store up to par, as far as terminology is concerned.
(c) 2021 Retail Retell
These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)
Our first Remixed basket sign (could, and will, be worse)
WEEK 22 – Stateline Kroger Revisited, Set 2
Finally, here it is: our very first close-up look at how the rest of the department signs we’ll be seeing in this stour are butchered under Remix. (Get it? “Butchered,” because this is the butcher counter? Okay, true, I dislike it anyway, but I thought that joke would at least mask my distaste a little bit :P )
As you can see, literally all the quote-unquote “remodel” does is remove the curved railing with the existing “fresh meat” lettering*, and replace it with new stick-on letters reading “MEAT & FISH.” The dark-colored basket signs like this one get white letters; the blonde wood signs we’ll see later get dark letters. And that’s that.
Again, as I wrote earlier, it seems like we’re progressing from best to worst in this tour. So, while this is our first example of a basket sign reuse, and the ultimate point I’m trying to get to is that the basket sign reuses look bad overall, this specific one actually looks somewhat tolerable (or at least more passable than others) because the length of the phrase “MEAT & FISH” actually stretches long enough to fill the entire basket – so, as a result, there are no centering issues. For smaller phrases such as “DELI” or “DAIRY,” the remodel crews in theory should work to center the letters appropriately on the signage – but as we’ll see, that often does not turn out successfully, sometimes to very, very bad effects.
It also doesn’t help that in some cases, the nature of the Remix décor package itself means that it’s asking for very thin letters such as a capital “I” to be affixed at a point where it turns out there’s actually a gap in the basket sign – notice that they just barely avoid that issue here, with the “I” in “FISH.” That’s just bad design, imo. The shapes of letters can be finicky, and at this size and with those gaps between the sign beams, finding enough points to affix the putty to to make sure the letters stick can be a challenge.
All of which, again, is why I feel like reusing the basket signs is much more trouble than it’s worth, and negatively impacts this décor in more ways than one: there’s the cheap-looking factor (with the letters just stuck flat on there), the décor personality factor (with the reuse of the basket signs and the issues that that presents, concerning both the lack of separate, more inventive wall signage, as well as the brown-on-brown look that this department has going on now), the practicality factor (with the difficulty of installing the letters and subsequent implementation failures)… etcetera.
* -- Almost forgot to explain the asterisk here: just wanted to briefly note that this store was unusual in that most Bountiful stores already went ahead and said “meat & fish” on the department sign, whereas Stateline here had just “fresh meat,” as shown in that linked image. So, Remix has actually brought the store up to par, as far as terminology is concerned.
(c) 2021 Retail Retell
These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)