Old Kmart building signage

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Super S
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Old Kmart building signage

Post by Super S »

I recently switched to DSL, and have checked out several old commercials on youtube such as this old one for Kmart:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VleVqxp7 ... re=related

I noticed many of the old ads, as well as many print ads I can remember, all used what looked like a "compressed" version of the sign as it appeared on the buildings, which is at the very end of this one. Did Kmart at any point use an actual sign that more closely resembled the logo used in the ads? I have never seen a "compressed" one like in their ads on their buildings.
Dean
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Re: Old Kmart building signage

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wnetmacman
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Re: Old Kmart building signage

Post by wnetmacman »

That logo is the Kmart Australia logo. It's somewhat modified from the original Kmart logo, and is still in use at their stores.
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Re: Old Kmart building signage

Post by Super S »

This logo is what I am referring to:


http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl= ... 0%26um%3D1

I knew about the Australia stores, but I am wondering about the U.S. stores, most of which used a sign like this:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl= ... 0%26um%3D1
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Andrew T.
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Re: Old Kmart building signage

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The classic 1962-90 Kmart logo appeared in all kinds of proportions and incarnations; ranging from upright to "compressed" and spread out, and with the "K" alternately positioned far, close, or even overlapping with the mart (which was sometimes placed within a box, for good measure!)

As far as I know, the proportions for signage used on the actual stores was consistent from the beginning to the end of this period. 1980s Kmart stores themselves seem to be a scarce commodity: The chain more or less achieved its national penetration by the late 1970s, and new store construction dropped to a trickle until Kmart's reimaging of the early 1990s. (I'm not even sure what a mid- or late-1980s Kmart store looks like, actually!)

As for the reasoning to why they used so many variations of the same logo in the first place, I can only assume that retailers were far less conscious about presenting a single, "unified" face for their corporate identity in the 1960s and 1970s than they are today. This was the era when Sears stores were simultaneously using script logotypes on exteriors, uppercase letters on mall interior entrances, and mixed-case letters on catalogs and actual products; after all.
"The pale pastels which have been featured in most food stores during the past 20 years are no longer in tune with the mood of the 1970s."
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tkaye
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Re: Old Kmart building signage

Post by tkaye »

Andrew T. wrote:The classic 1962-90 Kmart logo appeared in all kinds of proportions and incarnations; ranging from upright to "compressed" and spread out, and with the "K" alternately positioned far, close, or even overlapping with the mart (which was sometimes placed within a box, for good measure!)

As far as I know, the proportions for signage used on the actual stores was consistent from the beginning to the end of this period. 1980s Kmart stores themselves seem to be a scarce commodity: The chain more or less achieved its national penetration by the late 1970s, and new store construction dropped to a trickle until Kmart's reimaging of the early 1990s. (I'm not even sure what a mid- or late-1980s Kmart store looks like, actually!)
Here's an example of a store Kmart opened in 1988 from Port Orchard, Wash. Though it closed in 2002, you can get the general idea of the building and that it was a smaller store than most of the '60s and '70s varieties. If I recall correctly, the exterior signage was a bit more condensed, in part because of the smaller facade (which was definitely not the green color that it is now -- I'm pretty sure it was a very dark brown). I want to say that the "K" was one piece of plastic instead of the two used in the older signs, but I could be wrong. As for the inside, the departments were identified with white lettering underlined with red piping on a black rectangular hanging sign -- they put a lot of these up in older stores during the late '80s as well. The interior walls were painted a sort of burnt orange or beigish color.
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Re: Old Kmart building signage

Post by TenPoundHammer »

tkaye wrote:If I recall correctly, the exterior signage was a bit more condensed, in part because of the smaller facade (which was definitely not the green color that it is now -- I'm pretty sure it was a very dark brown). I want to say that the "K" was one piece of plastic instead of the two used in the older signs, but I could be wrong. As for the inside, the departments were identified with white lettering underlined with red piping on a black rectangular hanging sign -- they put a lot of these up in older stores during the late '80s as well. The interior walls were painted a sort of burnt orange or beigish color.
That's exactly what my local Kmart (Oscoda, MI) looked like. IIRC it opened sometime around 1985 and I remember it being expanded in 1991. Before the remodel, it looked something like this now-closed store in Liberty, Texas:

Image

The Oscoda store is now a near-exact copy of this former store in Charlotte, Michigan, except the latticework is dark green instead of red. Note how the roofline goes from straight to angled near the right side of the pic; both stores were obviously expanded around the same time.

Image

I haven't seen any other Kmart stores with latticework archways over the entries. Has this been done anywhere else?

Here is a current bird's-eye view of the Charlotte store, which makes it more obvious that the store was expanded at some point: Dunham's being the original, angled-roof Kmart, and Peebles being the flat-roofed expansion. Again, Oscoda has a nearly-identical roofline, but the expansion is slightly larger.
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Andrew T.
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Re: Old Kmart building signage

Post by Andrew T. »

Image

This is a picture of the Kmart store in Manitowoc, WI that opened in a former Copps department store/hypermarket building in November 1985 (and closed less than a decade later). Although the image quality isn't that great, you'll notice that the signage is identical in proportion and style to that used 10 or 20 years earlier.
"The pale pastels which have been featured in most food stores during the past 20 years are no longer in tune with the mood of the 1970s."
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