Rabba Fine Foods added beer and wine to its Toronto grocery stores and needed shoppers to find it, buy it and know when they can. BEND Creative built the signage system that does all three, from the sidewalk to the checkout.
Beer and wine became Rabba's fastest-growing category. The signage had to grow it further and stop shoppers from learning the legal hours at the till.
A declined sale at 11:15 p.m. means a frustrated customer and an awkward conversation for the cashier. Clear signs, placed earlier in the trip, prevent both. So we treated the category like a route, and gave every stop on it one job.
Floor-to-ceiling window graphics put the category and its hours on the street side of the glass. A full-height glass of beer reads from across the lot. The 7AM to 11PM hours read from the sidewalk, so a late-night driver knows whether the stop is worth it before turning off the engine.
The entrance door carries the same lockup and the same hours, sized for someone three steps away and already reaching for the handle. The repetition is deliberate. A shopper who missed the window sees the message again before picking up a basket.
A "Ready to Drink" header runs the length of the cooler, in the same red and the same type as the windows outside. Shoppers spot it from the end of the aisle. The header handles the wayfinding, and the product on the shelf does the selling.
A counter card asks for ID from anyone who looks 25 or under, with 19+ in a circle you can read at arm's length. The shopper knows what's coming before the cashier has to say it. Store notices, like the video-monitoring sign, use the same red frame and type, so required messages look like Rabba instead of generic hardware-store signs.
Wine bags and a "Beer in Here" six-pack carrier take the category identity out the door. Packaging is the last sign in the system, and the only one that ends up on someone's kitchen counter.
Every piece runs on Rabba Gothic, a condensed display face, paired with a heavy serif ampersand that echoes the Rabba wordmark. That ampersand became the mark for Wine & Beer. With one red, one typeface and one ampersand, a door decal, a cooler header and a paper bag all read as the same brand.
Large-format retail needs systems that scale without losing impact. Each piece is a template, so the same lockup works on a window, a door and a counter card.
Legal hours, age checks and store notices are designed pieces. Each one sits where the shopper's question comes up, so it reads as help and not as a warning.
Seasons, promotions and prices change, and the system has room for all of them. From rollout to refresh, we're in it for the long game.
The in-store signage system for Rabba's beer and wine category in its Greater Toronto Area stores. It includes window graphics, entrance door graphics, cooler and aisle headers, checkout ID cards, store notices, wine bags and a six-pack carrier, all built on the Rabba Gothic typeface.
A piece for each step of the shopper's trip: exterior and window graphics, entry signage, aisle and category headers, shelf and cooler signage, checkout and compliance signs, and packaging. Every piece should share one typeface, one colour system and one tone so the store reads as one brand.
Start with the rules. In Ontario, retail beer and wine sales run from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., and staff ask for ID from anyone who looks under 25. Put those messages where shoppers make decisions: hours on the window and door, ID reminders at the counter. Shoppers learn the rules before they reach the till, which means fewer declined sales and fewer awkward conversations at checkout.
BEND Creative is a Toronto creative agency for grocery and CPG brands, built by insiders from Canada's largest grocery retailer. Services include brand strategy, social and campaigns, CPG packaging, retail and in-store marketing, and Canadian legal compliance.