Have you ever really looked at store price tags? More specifically grocery and wholesale stores — like Costco, BJ’s, Sam’s Club, Kroger, and the like.
As a designer, my mind just always notices random things (like fonts — and spacing, I can’t control it ????).
The other day I was at our local BJ’s Wholesale that just opened in town and noticed the price tags:
Image Credit: Reddit
Doesn’t it look familiar? If not — well, it looks almost exactly like the price tags at Costco:
Image Credit: The Spruce Eats
See the similarity?
A white paper.
Black, simple fonts.
Item description.
Large price in bottom right corner.
It’s really that simple, and this is not just a coincidence. The design of these price tags is extremely methodical, and Costco and BJ’s know exactly what they are doing.
A price tag is meant to serve a single purpose — to inform customers of how much a specific item will cost them. That’s it.
And this simple design, or lack thereof, achieves that to a T.
There’s no fancy graphics, complex brand fonts, or even any color for that matter. These big box stores are focusing on accomplishing one simple task, and overcomplicating that can easily be a deterrent for buying.
Imagine the price tag was blue, with a terrible font and the price was hard to read — something like this:
I don’t know about you, but this is extremely deterring.
Now, I know this is an extreme example of really bad design. But what I’m trying to prove is that even though the Costco and BJ’s price tags are so dang simple, they are designed with a purpose.
There’s a reason there’s no color — you don’t want to evoke the wrong emotion from a potential buyer.
And in retail, using red can signify a “sale” or “discount” of some sort, which can send the wrong message if it’s not true.
So when you’re approaching your next design project, always keep the main goal in mind — what are you trying to achieve? What message are you sending, and what do you ultimately want your customer to do?
Overcomplicating design can happen very easily, I’ve done it — but you should always be focusing on the purpose of the design to begin with.
Stick to the basics, even if it means your designs are plain vanilla like Costco and BJ’s.
See you soon,
