Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Nostalgic Vegetables




Early in my service at Trader Joe's, I was encouraged to make decorative price tags for the different departments of the store. These were some of the ones I made for vegetables. Each price tag (called "template" in Trader-Joe-speak) was not only a still life, but evoked a landscape and a season, in this case summer. I made poetic asparagus and earthy potatoes and serene fields in the sun. 

These tags, in sheets of 6, were multiplied on a color copier and then lettered, usually by me. The emptier areas of the scene were where I put the writing and the price. They were then installed in the vegetable area, anchored in plastic clips. The originals are in ink and water-based markers. Each tag is 5 1/2 inches wide by 2 1/4 inches tall. This set was done in the summer of 2004. (Please click on the image for a larger view.)

These haven't been in use in the store for many years. Nowadays, five years later, we signmakers are required to do templates with no decoration at all, only a band of color around the perimeter, for the sake of visibility and clear writing. I remember with fondness how I was able to create miniatures of sentimental nostalgia to tell people the price of asparagus.

2 comments:

Mike (Altus) said...

It's too bad those higher up don't "get it". These are great, and it's a shame you can't do them anymore.

Tristan Alexander said...

These are nice, it is a shame you can't do more.

You know, if you would do some anthropamorphic name tags like this of different animals I know many who would buy them!

(and I had to type "hogie" to post this)