Stop & Shop - New Logo?

Although I've not been inside one in a while, I drove by the Berlin Stop & Shop (with the radio on.....) recently and noticed a new (and fairly disturbing, in its graphic simplicity) logo on the street signage and atop the building. I could not find an image online (it's that new) so I recreated it to the best of my ability.

Now, you may recall the most recent Stop & Shop logo (adapted or harmonized with parent company Giant Foods), circa 2008 - present.

And old timers may recall the old logo, circa 1992 - 2008.

Wikipedia provides some background:

Stop & Shop/Giant-Landover was a combined supermarket chain owned by the American subsidiary of the Dutch retailer Ahold. The company took its form in 2004, after Ahold decided to combine the operations of its New England-based Stop & Shop chain with its Landover, Maryland-based Giant Food chain to create the largest supermarket company in the Mid-Atlantic States. Giant's headquarters relocated in Landover, Maryland, and Stop & Shop kept their headquarters in Quincy, Massachusetts. This combination failed, as Mid-Atlantic market area shoppers grocery needs did not align with those of Stop & Shop's offerings. In 2011 the two companies were separated and now operate independently. The separation of Stop & Shop/Giant-Landover, also brought the separation of the Stop & Shop Supermarket into two separate operating divisions, Stop & Shop-New England and Stop & Shop-New York. Both Giant Food and Stop & Shop's two divisions continue to share the same Fruit Basket Logo even though they all operate independently.

 ~ Wikipedia: Stop & Shop/Giant-Landover

So not sure if the "new logo" is coming from the initial separation from Giant Food, or from the subsequent schism of Stop & Shop New England and Stop and Shop New York. This perhaps sheds some light on things: Ahold Delhaize Planning Stop & Shop Format Update This Fall (The Shelby Report, August 13, 2018)

All I can say is, I don't like it. The old logo (red box, white background, black font with minimized ampersand) is kind of classic. I liked the most recent logo fine, it felt fresh (in line with produce, organic, local, etc. which seem to be what folks want in a grocer). The new logo just seems - hurried, rushed, something an executive without a lot of graphic design skills might come up with in Word or PowerPoint. Seems almost generic, like they cobbled the sign together out of stock shapes and fonts without too much thought about subtleties, scale, or sizing. It's a throwback to the old logo but really poorly implemented.

Meh, that's all I can say. I am sure the official website, press pages, etc. will get changed eventually, and there will be some breathless announcement about the new logo. But for what it's worth, I'm not in love with it.

On the other hand, it's annoying and notable enough for me to blog about it, so that's something.....

Engineering while Female

This blog is not the only place I leave internet footprints; I also post periodically to my professional website, as well as to Facebook, Linked In, etc.

A little while back, I came across an interesting site in my engineering work, and posted about it on Linked In:

Now, when I post these things on that particular platform, I invariably get a lot of "sales pitches" from folks who want to sell something - a monitoring device, a filtering device, etc. I also get a lot of what I might call MAS (Male Answer Syndrome) with fellow (always, male) engineers making suggestions. Finally some appreciative readers who find these posts interesting.

In general, I try to (gently) push them away; I am doing this analysis remotely, have neither access to the site nor responsibility for the resolution. I post simply because it seems curious or interesting, because I might have a theory as to what is going on, etc.

In this case, my response to a few of these "this is what you should do (or buy)" posts:

To be clear, the nature of my work is to receive data, put together a summary / analysis for my client, who turns it over to the local field service folks. I have no direct involvement in the site (finding the specific cause, troubleshooting, prescribing solutions) so the advice, recommendations, etc. here, while on target, are not generally useful to me. I post these not for solutions or ideas, but rather because they are interesting - have been working in power quality for over 30 years so I'm pretty sure I could drill down to a cause and solution if that were in my wheelhouse.

And a response from one commenter (who felt, perhaps, a tad under-appreciated):

I understand from your reply that, as Mr. S told, either current probe not clamped properly or something else. As you have not involved directly and just doing clerical activity, I think discussing more about this posting is meaningless.

::sigh:: The fact that this individual was, in fact, not yet born the day I hooked up my first power monitoring device or had my sleeves rolled up poking around facility electrical panels is not lost on me. Nor that he is from a country where women are not quite fully realized as human beings. And this "clerical work" has involved me reviewing and providing analysis for over 4500 sites / data sets over the past 15 years. In the words of Farmer's Insurance "We know a lot because we've seen a lot"


I could have used it as a teachable moment, I suppose. But I do not have time or energy to fix the world at this point. I simply disconnected from him on Linked In. Pound sand, my narrow minded, culturally hamstrung, and younger, not wiser colleague...