Albertsons is the name of an American grocery-retailer, which was established in 1939. Today the company has more than 2 thousand stores across the USA and is the second-largest grocery chain in the country.
The famous American supermarket chain has had only three major logo redesigns throughout its pretty long and intense history. The brand of the grocery stores was always more concentrated on quality and expansion of its assortment than on the visual identity, that is why for the first three decades, it was just a simple monochrome logotype.
The very first Albertsons logotype was written in a fancy and modern cursive typeface with its bold letters a bit narrowed. The tail of the letter “A” was elongated and curved, pointing up, and the horizontal bar of the “T” was extra-thick and also long. In some banners, the logotype was accompanied by a two-leveled “Food Center” inscription in a playful outlined sans-serif.
The redesign of 1960 starts writing the lettering in white and placed it on a solid black background. The new wordmark has its letters capitalized and executed in a designer typeface with a thin vertical batch and massive square serifs with rounded angles. The “Food Centers” tagline was executed in a simple sans-serif to balance the creativity of the main inscription.
The logo was simplified to just “Albertsons” in 1972, and the typeface of the inscription was switched again. The logo from that year was executed in all-caps of a fancy serif font with bold letters, and thick and confident serifs with half of their angles rounded, and the other half — sharp.
In 1976 the Albertsons logo is being redesigned by the famous Landor Associates bureau, and this is when the brand gets some fresh colors for its visual identity. The new logo of the company is composed of a smooth title-case logotype, written in light blue, and a stylized “A”, drawn with two ribbons and a plant under them.
The new logotype of the company is written in a modern yet sophisticated and sleek serif typeface, which is very close to such fonts as Looking Glass and Ars Nova Regular. The thick and solid contours of the letters are rounded and softened, which makes the inscription look whole and complete.
The two shades of blue, placed in a white background, is a representation of reliability and safety, and this is exactly what the supermarket chain aims to give to its customers, providing them with a wide range of high-quality products.