Another High Street Rebrand

woah · Wed 19 Jan, 2011 20.05

WillPS wrote:Sheffield was the first Wilkinson to carry the new branding, I think in October 2008. Sheffield also has the last shop to open with the old branding on their London Road branch.

It was a trial store a long with a couple of others in other cities - and it had a full refurb inside too, including new ceiling panels with proper lights replacing the awful fluorescent tubes, which made it look so much better than before and to this day looks very nice.

Seeing as you live in Sheffield too, I guess you've seen the one at Crystal Peaks which has the new branding but only recieved a lick of paint and some new signs. Not as nice but still a significant improvement.

Philip · Wed 19 Jan, 2011 21.44

Not strictly a high street brand, but as Britain's largest telecoms operator thought this may be of interest to some. A proposed update of the current BT brand by the people who brought you the glass Sky logo and the refreshed HMV logo, among others.

http://www.venturethree.co.uk/#/work/bt/bt/01

lukey · Wed 19 Jan, 2011 22.08

'Proposed'?

The current logo seems perfectly....adequate, in so much as it functions in print and on-screen, despite being less iconic than the piper, and I still really like the typography of the current logo, compared to this. And I repeat, 'proposed'?

Philip · Wed 19 Jan, 2011 22.13

lukey wrote:'Proposed'?

BT asked venturethree to create a new logo for them, this was their proposed design. They obviously did not use it.

dosxuk · Wed 19 Jan, 2011 22.16

Looking at that, they didn't want to do it either.

WillPS · Wed 19 Jan, 2011 22.53

woah wrote:
WillPS wrote:Sheffield was the first Wilkinson to carry the new branding, I think in October 2008. Sheffield also has the last shop to open with the old branding on their London Road branch.
It was a trial store a long with a couple of others in other cities - and it had a full refurb inside too, including new ceiling panels with proper lights replacing the awful fluorescent tubes, which made it look so much better than before and to this day looks very nice.

Seeing as you live in Sheffield too, I guess you've seen the one at Crystal Peaks which has the new branding but only recieved a lick of paint and some new signs. Not as nice but still a significant improvement.

Alas I'm stuck in the wilderness of North Lincolnshire at the moment (on an industrial placement), all the refurbs I've seen have removed the exposed fluorescent tubes.

Have they sorted out the checkout area in the Sheffield Haymarket one yet? In Nottingham they've totally scrapped the checkouts and gone with a bank style snaking queue which works a lot better, wheras the Sheffield prototype just had the red checkout painted grey (with the red showing up only months later).

woah · Thu 20 Jan, 2011 16.07

WillPS wrote:
woah wrote:
WillPS wrote:Sheffield was the first Wilkinson to carry the new branding, I think in October 2008. Sheffield also has the last shop to open with the old branding on their London Road branch.
It was a trial store a long with a couple of others in other cities - and it had a full refurb inside too, including new ceiling panels with proper lights replacing the awful fluorescent tubes, which made it look so much better than before and to this day looks very nice.

Seeing as you live in Sheffield too, I guess you've seen the one at Crystal Peaks which has the new branding but only recieved a lick of paint and some new signs. Not as nice but still a significant improvement.
Alas I'm stuck in the wilderness of North Lincolnshire at the moment (on an industrial placement), all the refurbs I've seen have removed the exposed fluorescent tubes.

Have they sorted out the checkout area in the Sheffield Haymarket one yet? In Nottingham they've totally scrapped the checkouts and gone with a bank style snaking queue which works a lot better, wheras the Sheffield prototype just had the red checkout painted grey (with the red showing up only months later).

They have two basket queues on each side with the automated caller thingy, and the normal bizarre opposite facing checkouts in the middle - I think it's always been that way since the refurb. This of course means the idiotic queues that you always find there remain.

Not sure if you're aware of this either but they've opened a B&M store on Haymarket in the old BHS which had been empty for years - and it''s horrific, it still has the BHS style front and interior, but with some awful signs stuck on and it's clear nothing has been fixed up inside other than putting in some shelves and tills.

WillPS · Thu 20 Jan, 2011 16.37

Well, at least something's gone in, that end of town is defnitely going to struggle when the market closes, what with Castle House SCS closed and the raft of empty units which surround it. Hasn't Burger King gone too?

dosxuk · Thu 20 Jan, 2011 17.01

I hope so. That Burger King is the grottiest, unfriendlyist Burger King I've ever been in. The staff were rude and obnoxious, as were the majority of the other customers. Some of the stories I've heard about their customers, if true, are absolutely disgusting.

Wrong side of the tram tracks and all that...

woah · Thu 20 Jan, 2011 18.55

Yes, the Burger King closed a good few months ago - and yes, I only ever went in twice and both times I had plenty of trouble from the staff. It sat derelict for a while with the chairs and serving area still there but it seems they've taken all that out now and painted it white with bare concrete floor, ready for a new shop to take it's place.

WillPS · Thu 20 Jan, 2011 18.57

I have to say, for a BK I found the staff pretty okay... the place however was a dive, the seating upstairs had clearly been there since the 80s.

I once had to walk out of the BK in the railway station after the manageress humiliated a member of staff in front of me and a lunchtime crowd. Bitch.