Safeway S Brand – Anthem Worldwide

The concept soared at the presentation—the clients whistled and the design team exhaled. Safeway would soon sport a brand new look for their nationally recognized and relied-upon private label—Safeway’s own line of mid-priced, family-friendly essentials under it’s pervasive S-Brand.

The mid-range alternative line of food and beverage staples demanded a visual presence that could assert itself from every shelf in the store as a challenger to the national brands, winning shoppers over by combining Safeway’s trusted brand cues with a look specific to each category. Recognized logo and brand elements—such as the letterform of a vintage Safeway “S”—conveyed the Safeway standards of quality and accessibility. These elements would combine with a unique color, photo, and typographic combination for each category. After these formidable challenges had been met, there was the matter of tailoring that look to each carton, bag and bottle under Safeway’s massive category offering, as dictated by countless suppliers across the United States. 

A winning concept from Anthem would invigorate the brand, but when the concept was played out over multiple forms—a tall carton, a wide bag, etc.—the design proved cumbersome. Even in the same presentations, from designers sitting next to each other, new sku designs for the brand did not look as if they belonged together.

Another challenge to be considered—the hundreds of extensions would be carried out by production artists working in another city, at a different company. In a different time-zone... Some rules were yearned for and Anthem’s creative directors knew to turn to their their technical design department for a solution.

As the young company geared up to start delivery on their most formidable project to date, I set about creating the S Brand System—guidelines based on proportion that eliminated guesswork and assured integrity for Safeway’s go-to private label.