Greggs logo analysis

This is the first in a series of pieces I'm planning to write which analyse the logos of the brands that appear on the high street where I live. I live in a big, busy town so there's plenty to choose from. I’ve decided to start with Greggs the bakery for no other reason than it happened to be opposite the supermarket whose socially distanced line I had to wait in for 15 minutes today, so I had plenty of time to stare at the Greggs logo.

The first thing to say would be that the logo doesn’t appear to have changed much since the company opened its first shop in 1951. Below are pictures of the original store frontage compared with the current logo.

1951

2020

The most notable differences are the original store had a large, isolated letter G on the left of the sign and stated the location of the store, Gosforth in Newcastle upon Tyne being the location of the first branch. However if we ignore these two elements, the formatting of the brand name is hardly any different. The lettering remains very similar to what we have now. 

A simple sans-serif font is utilised in both, making the name clean and easy to read. Both logos omit the possessive apostrophe. The bakery was founded by John Gregg in 1939 so the company name should be correctly rendered “Gregg’s”. A lot of companies choose to leave out the apostrophe nowadays because it helps to make the logo look less cluttered and, in this case, it continues the clean, simple look which the sans-serif lettering creates. Leaving out the apostrophe was less common in the past so it is a little bit surprising to see this in the 1950s logo.

I'm not sure what colour scheme was used in the original logo because I have only been able to find black and white photographs of it. However, we see a simple colour palette used in the current logo. The background is blue with gradation from a darker shade of blue on the left of the logo, grading to a lighter shade of blue on the right. The lettering of the Greggs brand name is white, which stands out very clearly against the blue background. To the left of the brand name, the isolated letter G has been replaced by four orange squares, themselves making up a bigger square. 

I did some research online to try to find out what this image symbolises, however I was unable to find an explanation for what it represents. The squares don't seem to have been present in earlier incarnations of the logo so they seem to be a modern addition. In 2018, the Birmingham Mail newspaper asked Greggs if there is a meaning behind the squares. Unfortunately, they received an unhelpful answer. Greggs simply told them, "The four squares don't denote anything, the logo design has just naturally evolved over the years." I don't think this is accurate. Major brands spend lots of money commissioning graphic designers to create bold, distinctive logos which their customers will easily recognise and remember, and there is always meaning in the logo. Therefore, I shall give my interpretation of the squares.

To me, the four orange squares could represent several things. They first struck me as appearing similar to the pattern on a gingham tea towel, the kind which we might imagine underneath a freshly baked pie, cooling on a window sill, like in the picture below.

Or the squares might actually represent the pie itself, evoking an image of the hot, delicious filling beneath the pastry lattice. But instead of a blueberry filling as shown in the picture below, the colour orange might represent something like a tasty apricot pie.

A different interpretation could be that the squares resemble a square window, divided up into four smaller panes of glass, again similar to what we see in the picture above. The logo for me evokes an image of being outside on a cold, wintry afternoon, looking through the window into a cosy home, or possibly a bakery, emanating a warm orange glow caused by the heat of the oven. The warmth tempts us to go inside to get out of the cold to discover the sights, smells and maybe even tastes of what hot baked treats are inside. 

Greggs sometimes also attaches their strapline to the bottom of their logo, which reads “Always Fresh. Always Tasty.” 

This strapline doesn’t appear on their store frontage. As far as I can see, when it is used it only appears on promotional material. The lettering of the strapline is interesting because it departs from the simplicity of the brand name lettering in several ways. Firstly, it uses a serif style font. Secondly, it employs upper case and lower case lettering (not all block capitals like in the brand name). Thirdly, the lettering is italicised. And lastly, it makes use of punctuation: two full stops, one after each short sentence and the trademark symbol is included at the end. These departures from the simple, sans-serif, block capitals of the brand name lend the strapline a slightly more elaborate and sophisticated look. This could suggest that beyond the staple items that Greggs sells, like the steak bake and the sausage roll, there are perhaps more fancy items for sale that you might not expect to find. However, having been to Greggs myself, I’m not convinced of this interpretation.

Alternatively, the lettering of the strapline could hint at the long history and heritage of the brand, which is almost ninety-years-old now. The more fancy lettering, especially the detail on the letter Y, could be a call-back to the more detailed, elaborate logos and font styles utilised by brands in the past. The connotation of history is also emphasised by the double use of the word “always”. This repetition puts the idea in the mind of the reader, either consciously or subconsciously, that this is a bakery that has been around for many years and has stood the test of time. Greggs are contesting that they have the right to say “always” and their use of the word means more than if a start-up bakery were to use it because Greggs has survived almost a century, which I’m sure they would argue is evidence that they do, indeed, always deliver quality products.

So there you have it, my thoughts on the Greggs logo. I think you’ll agree there’s more going on in there than you might think there is at first glance. I hope you enjoyed reading and let me know what you think in the comments below.