Harris Teeter Logo Progression

Harris Teeter grocery initially began as two separate stores that opened in 1939; Harris Super Market by W.T. Harris and Teeter’s Food Mart by Willis Teeter. Located in Charlotte and Mooresville North Carolina respectively, the two grocers each grew their stores into small chains and then converged in 1960 to create Harris Teeter Super Markets Inc. with a fleet of 15 stores around the greater Charlotte area. (“History of Harris teeter Inc. – FundingUniverse,” n.d.). Harris Teeter now has over 250 stores across seven states in the South East and is ranked as the 37th largest supermarket in the United States, and the second largest in the Carolinas (Williams, 2016).  

The first logo of the Harris Teeter convergence is a great example of 1960’s design trends through the use of bright colors and floral shapes. The logo of the 1970’s to the late 1990’s remained similar in nature, just switching from a vertical orientation to a horizontal one. One unique feature of these logos is the use of negative space to create the tittle of the ‘i’ in Harris. The red frames the type in a rounded rectangle and dips into the shape at an angle to reflect the chosen typeface.

The next logo design shifts to a more personal design with a lowercase serif font that conveys a more organic feel. This iteration also introduces the icons of bread, an apple, and a fish as well as the subtitle, “Neighborhood Food & Pharmacy”. The word ‘neighborhood’ creates a sense of community and a relationship between the company and the consumers.

The newest evolution of the Harris Teeter logo, unveiled in 2023, was produced by Luquire, a Charlotte-based advertising agency. This iteration kept the iconic bread, apple, and fish, but made the shapes solid rather than outlined.

Generally, since the turn of the century, there has been a gradual shift to sans-serif typefaces in logotypes in order to produce a modern, yet relatable, feel. Others see this as a shift to an emotionless feel of the logo and removes the sense of personality from their previous iterations. Readability has become more important to logo designers as the general population read more and more on small digital screens. Sans-serif logotypes has become the staple for the saying ‘less is more’ in that the simple font choices allow for a more streamlined exchange of information (“Sans serif typographic revolution”).