The lack of fun and whimsy is one of my biggest complaints about modern-day retail design, and really 2010s/2020s culture in general. Just compare Safeway Modern to Albertsons' Grocery Palace, or Artisan to Kroger Spirit, or any Target decor from the past few decades to their neon era. The same sort of thing can be seen in all sorts of fields, from product design (remember the amorphous translucent plastic cases electronics came in back then?) to architecture to what fonts are popular, and while I cheered that as modernity for a while, I certainly don't any longer. Is this something that anyone else has noticed and thought about, or is it just me?
"Is this something that anyone else has noticed and thought about, or is it just me?"
ReplyDeleteHa, I think you've read enough of my comments to know the answer to that one! I will say that perhaps I'm not as enthusiastic about some late 1990s ultra-whimsical designs as many of the younger members of the retail enthusiast community who perhaps grew up shopping at Grocery Palaces and Kroger Millennium stores. I'm more of a glass & class type fan, but sometimes class and whimsy can combine and yield good results. I think Kroger Neon is a good example of that along with the nicer of the late 1980s Fiesta Marts.
While there might be some disagreement on the whimsical front, I will agree that I'm tired of the plain white and disagreeable gray that is everywhere. I know that some people found 2000s beige to be boring, but at least it had some class to it which I find hard to see in plain white and grey. Those of us who are into commercial aviation have been complaining about the excessive use of white for decades now. Darn that Air France Eurowhite! It wouldn't have been bad if they were the only ones using that design, but now it seems like almost everyone uses it. Granted, some of the alternatives, like United's 1990s Battleship Grey, weren't exactly stellar either especially when the paint faded as it often did.
I don't know about comparing Grocery Palace to Modern, but I'll soon have a guest post up at HHR showing Kroger Artisan in a Grocery Palace! Yeah, I know, everyone is looking forward to that, lol. The sight of Artisan in a Grocery Palace may cause a few to shed tears! This is the post that Mike was hoping to do, but he wasn't able to do it due to time constraints and so he asked me if I could pick up the project. Given that the Krogertsons is my store....it really is!...the answer was obviously that I would make the post for that.
My feelings about the Rainforest Cafe perhaps aren't as generous as yours, but perhaps I am a bit biased against them since they are locally-owned. Tilman Fertitta of Houston owns the company, Landry's, that has run the Rainforest Cafe for years now and I view him and many of his businesses as being rather tacky. Whether the likes of the Rainforest Cafe fit on that list or not is debatable, but I don't think there is much debate about the Joe's Crab Shacks of the world. He also owns the Houston Rockets basketball team and he hasn't done anything embarrassing as the owner, that I can think of at least, which is certainly an upgrade from his predecessor. Maybe my perceptions about Fertitta and Landry's are a bit unfair!
I may be younger, but I certainly didn't grow up with those decor packages -- more like Lifestyle v1 and PF&H, two packages that are about as far from fun and whimsical as you can get! I tend to consider 2000s beige and present-day grey equivalent -- I want real color! And United's Battleship Grey doesn't count as real color any more than modern-day grey retail decor. (Their Rising Blue livery after that is one of my all-time favorites, along with Air Canada's "toothpaste" livery... Air France and Air Canada's current livery are all the way at the other end of the spectrum.)
DeleteRainforest Cafe certainly isn't somewhere I'd want to eat these days (I was more in the target demographic when I was 5), but I still miss their aesthetic. Sure, it's tacky and dated, but I don't hate tacky, dated things these days the way I used to. Honestly, nothing from Landry's appeals to me, but that's probably because I don't have much interest in big chain restaurants!
I don't quite consider beige and grey to be similarly distasteful. Beige can be boring, see Lifestyle v1 as an example, but at least it isn't on the grayscale and it has some warmth to the color. Grey just doesn't many advantages in my mind at least!
DeleteI'm glad to see that I'm not the only critic of United's Battleship Grey! I don't know why Air Canada ditched the green color, it did look great especially compared to what they were using prior and are using now. I know that airlines are a bit reluctant to use darker colors due to them potentially fading and looking bad (US Airways' dark blue livery comes to mind) and because dark colors can make the interior temperatures worse when the plane is on the ground, but I don't think the green had those issues. Oh well, at least here at IAH, we have KLM to break up the Eurowhite monotony at least over where the heavies park. Compared to Lufthansa's livery, the new United livery looks sharp! Then again, Lufthansa does still send 747-8s here so at least they have that going for them even if I'd rather see the A340-600 (which I did get an up close view of at ORD when we taxied right past the Lufthansa plane...fortunately they left more room than the Delta A350 pilots did at ATL yesterday!).