I'm used to seeing old decor with faded full-color prints at this point, but this store has one of the worst cases I've ever seen -- especially considering that the store, and therefore the decor, was less than 19 years old when I visited! I can't be sure if this store has or hasn't remodeled since I was here, but if not, I have to wonder if anything is left at all of the oval illustrations over 3 years later. And this store doesn't even have any natural light to make things fade quickly! Anyway, this is the one and only photo I took of the produce department -- I suspect I got bored of this store once I realized just how bad the Proto-Lifestyle decor actually looked here, compared to the handful of other stores with it I've visited.
The decor for Proto-Lifestyle and Lifestyle v1 is famous for fading even in stores with typical Lifestyle v1 dim lighting. That is a sad thing because otherwise I think this decor would have aged quite well. I think it has aged better than Lifestyle v1 has!
ReplyDeleteA bit off-topic, but do you know the official name for Kroger's Food 4 Less decor package? Is it Colorful Value? I'm currently working on a guest blog post at HHR (you can probably guess what the topic will be, lol) and I am stumped by the name of that decor package.
Interesting -- I've visited or shopped at a LOT of Lifestyle v1 stores over the years (many of which I haven't photographed because I'm quite bored with Lifestyle v1 these days), and I've never noticed dramatic fading like this in any of them. While I do like Proto-Lifestyle a lot more than Lifestyle v1, I do feel like v1's simplicity has allowed it to avoid looking massively dated the way Proto-Lifestyle does (though even without the fading, locally, a lot of stores with v1 were starting to look quite rough around the edges before the Modern decor wave started, since there were some very high volume stores that had gone close to 20 years without any sort of remodel).
DeleteYep, that's Colorful Value! Definitely my favorite of their "cheap" decor packages.
While the fading on Lifestyle v1 decor I've seen might not be quite as bad as the one seen here at Proto-Lifestyle, there is still visible fading. Here is an example from Houston: https://goo.gl/maps/UHj2r72tkpXTKJvZ9
DeleteI suppose I can see how Proto-Lifestyle has some turn of the century vibes to it along with 1980s vibes of that old Safeway logo and the old style aisle markers. Lifestyle v1 looks good, but perhaps the slightly less colorful look of it versus Proto-Lifestyle, often made worse with Lifestyle v1's poor lighting, gives Lifestyle v1 a bit of a dated look. Oddly enough, I don't find Lifestyle v2 to be nearly as dated even though it mostly has the same colors! Go figure!
The Colorful Value store I'm doing the guest post about is a good implementation of Colorful Value. I think you'll like this post. I'm almost done with it, but it probably won't go live until January at the very least since it'll be part of a new series that is expected to run throughout 2023 on HHR. I'm pretty excited about the series, which will showcase interesting Krogers in the area, but I suppose you've been showcasing interesting Krogers in the NW for years now! Of course, 'interesting' is usually relative with Kroger, lol, but there are some real oddballs around here.
Yikes, that's a lot worse than any store I've seen before! I'm glad to see that store has since been remodeled, even if it is to Lifestyle v3. I wonder if there's some sort of manufacturing defect that can cause fading like this to happen much quicker in some stores than others.
DeleteI definitely agree that Lifestyle v2 looks much more modern than its predecessors! I suspect it has to do with the much more premium design of the decor (with 3D elements and decor lighting) and also the removal of the oval sign elements, which are probably the thing in Lifestyle v1 that looks the most outdated (even when they aren't horribly faded!).