Old supermarket signage

[Critique]

Over the weekend I walked past an Iceland that still had the old gradient logo/grey frontage. I don’t think this is an especially uncommon sight, but from a quick check online the logo changed back in 2015, meaning that the shop frontage is around nine years out of date. It got me wondering: what’s the oldest supermarket frontage (on an open store!) still out there?

Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda haven’t had proper rebrands in ages but have fiddled with things at various points over the last decade or so, so I imagine there are lots of odd bits of old branding on their store estate. Following their acquisition of loads of Co-op petrol stations, Asda’s biggest problem is most likely that they now have a load of stores that have odd bits of old Co-op signage still present - at the petrol station near me they kept the Co-op grey wooden slat fascia but just switched the logo.

Morrisons, M&S and Waitrose meanwhile have had bigger rebrands, but it’s Waitrose that jumps out to me as not really having bothered to update the signage. I seem to remember that the Waitrose Christmas ad last year dropped the pointless ‘& Partners’, so maybe it was wise of them not to update the signs at half of their stores.

Saying that, I don’t have a Morrisons near me, so maybe the yellow M still lives on at dozens of stores and I’ve just not noticed? It’d certainly be in-keeping with this forum if they do turn out to be the answer…

[cdd]

This thread was done 15 years ago so I guess it’s due a recycle :)

The rather wonderful Brent Park Tesco — then stuck in a time warp since 1985 — was heavily modernised a year later and is now called Tesco Wembley, to the irritation of locals.

[Philip]

It hasn’t been updated in a while but there used to be a great Twitter account dedicated to this:

https://x.com/logopopsblog

[WillPS]

Until recently there was still a handful of Icelands with the 90s logo - wouldn't surprise me if there still is 1 or 2 remaining.

Morrisons aggressively rebranded everything all at once, the exceptions being the handful of supermarkets they (intended to) close or sell off imminently, but that was quite unusual - every other supermarket rebrand I can think of has been gradual. Sainsburys and Tescos with their pre-90s-rebrand logos existed well in to the 2010s, for example.

[all new Phil]

Re: Waitrose - they have a policy where they don’t replace external signage unless that have to. I think they pretty much know they need to update things - the title case logo looks alright but the updated branding looks nice. They just don’t have the money to spend to brings things up to date, but it means M&S feels like a much classier experience these days.

[Zimba]

Not the main signage, but there's this clinging on at Darlington North Road - https://www.google.com/maps/@54.5377816 ... ?entry=ttu

It's from the 1970's though as it uses the old Morrisons logo font from that era.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Darli ... ?entry=ttu - There's also a massive 90's Morrison's logo on the roof of the other store.

https://www.google.com/maps/@54.5199778 ... ?entry=ttu - These little bollards are quite common aswell, must say the 80's/90's stores had so much little details everywhere.

Mind they really cracked down on anomolies in the last rebrand even doing signs hidden inside foyers which no-one looks at, most of them were missed in the 2006 rebrand though. The 1995 plaque being an example on the last link.

[cwathen]

To add to the 'not actually still open but only recently closed category', Iceland Bedminster still sported this look until it shut in February 2023:

https://www.bristolworld.com/news/icela ... ce-4035048

Staying in Bristol, Tesco Metro on Broadmead still had 1980's signage until 2018 until it finally got an update which itself lasted only 2 or 3 years until the Metro format was retired and it became a Tesco Express.

Also, it's a long old time ago now, but Tesco Lee Mill in Plymouth still sported a 1970's exterior and early 1980's interior until it shut in 2004. The solution was to build a brand new store on the car park, then demolish the old store and build a new car park on the cleared land (don't recall what they did for parking during the period of time when both buildings were standing on the site).

[james2001]

This thread was done 15 years ago so I guess it’s due a recycle :)

The rather wonderful Brent Park Tesco — then stuck in a time warp since 1985 — was heavily modernised a year later and is now called Tesco Wembley, to the irritation of locals.

Funnily enough, Youtube has just reccomended me a video of a Thames News report on the opening of that very store:



I remember the Tesco near me used to have the clothes, electricals, homewears in a separate unit rather than in the main store, at least until an refurbishment and extension in 1996 (after that they used it at a stockroom- still with the old entry/exit signage, complete with late 70s/early 80s circled tick, on the doors), it also had an upstairs cafe that overlooked the shop (with the most bizarre lift!), which closed and moved to the main shop floor at the same time. Then they built a new Tesco Extra next door in 2006 and knocked it down.

I did find a photo from when the store opened in 1980 and the clothes were on the main shop floor (and the overhead signage is different to the later cream and white stripes that I remember), so moving that to a separate unit clearly didn't happen until a few years later.

And speaking of Morrisons, the sign on the outside when it first opened in 1992 said "WM Morrison" rather than Morrisons (though it was back to Morrisons by the mid-90s), clearly copying Sainsbury's with their J Sainsbury signage. Though they can't have been doing that for long, as I haven't found many examples of it in photos, photos I've found of stores opened in the 80s still say Morrisons, and it was back to that by the mid-90s. The only other examples I've found is if you look at the one in Wakefield town centre if you look at the earliest picture on Google Streetview it has the "Morrison" part (but the "WM" has been removed- Wikipedia has a picture with it still there), and I remember the store in Grantham also still had it in the sign on the roof of the shopping centre in the late 90s, but those three stores are the only ones I've ever seen with the WM Morrison branding, so it must have been a very short lived branding excersise and never on many branches.

[Philip]

This thread was done 15 years ago so I guess it’s due a recycle :)

The rather wonderful Brent Park Tesco — then stuck in a time warp since 1985 — was heavily modernised a year later and is now called Tesco Wembley, to the irritation of locals.

Interesting that you mention the covered walkway that Tescos used to have - Formby still has this but they shortened it a couple of years ago. Not sure why but I have always assumed the addition of click and collect parking spaces had something to do with it. I thought the whole thing was on its way out at one point because none of the lights worked anymore, but they have since replaced all the bulbs.

[james2001]

The one at Dundee Riverside still has one as well... which is interesting as I don't think that store was even built until the mid-late 90s, after they'd stopped being a normal part of Tesco architecture (though maybe the store's older than it looks).

And the Tesco in Monifieth still had the old WM Low celing until only a few years back.

[Zimba]

The one at Dundee Riverside still has one as well... which is interesting as I don't think that store was even built until the mid-late 90s, after they'd stopped being a normal part of Tesco architecture (though maybe the store's older than it looks).

And the Tesco in Monifieth still had the old WM Low celing until only a few years back.

Wonder if Tesco at Kingston Park (Newcastle) was one of the last, not as elegant as some of the older counterparts but it opened in 1999.

https://www.google.com/maps/@55.0136591 ... ?entry=ttu

It's the same basic design as them though.