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Grocery stores shape the everyday food experience of people in New York City, offering insight into its diverse communities. More than upscale restaurants, they serve local communities, making them an ideal lens for exploring multicultural representation in food retail. This project explores how grocery store names and signage to understand how they communicate identity, origin, and market positioning.
Using data visualization, this project maps linguistic and visual patterns across different cuisines, price ranges, and neighborhoods. By categorizing store name structure and signage aesthetics, it reveals trends in how businesses navigate cultural identity through branding. The project contributes to the study of multiculturalism in urban spaces and offers insights for those interested in food culture, language, and visual communication.
Have you ever been drawn into a grocery store simply because of its sign? Something about the name, colors, or typography just feels right, almost as if it speaks to you. But why does this happen? And why might your friend not feel the same way? Our perception of grocery store signage is shaped by cultural background, personal experiences, and the visual cues embedded in the design. In a city as diverse as New York, where food cultures from around the world exist side by side, grocery store names and signs provide subtle yet powerful clues about identity, heritage, and economic positioning.
Unlike upscale restaurants, which often cater to specific demographics, grocery stores serve local communities and reflect everyday food culture. Their signage, through typography, color, and name choices, communicates not only their origin but also their role in the neighborhood. Some signs embrace nostalgia and tradition, while others project a modern, upscale image. But how do these visual and linguistic choices shape customer perception? And how do they help businesses navigate NYC’s multicultural landscape?
This study will analyze the names and visual elements of grocery store signage across different cuisines in New York City. Using grocery store datasets from NY State Data for the registered name in English to show each word's cluster group of meaning and the opening date to add a layer of time changes. Linked with the shop images from Google Maps to detect patterns in typography and color using WhatFontis.com API and Vibrant.js to understand the visual pattern of the store sign. Additionally, comparing the local shops with the chain stores in a neighborhood, I will examine economic, geographic, and demographic factors to understand how grocery stores position themselves in the market and reflect the city's multicultural food scene.
The findings offer insights into how grocery stores communicate identity and attract customers across cultural and linguistic boundaries. By documenting and analyzing signage trends, this study provides a valuable reference for researchers studying urban diversity culture, visual communication, and food retail stores. It also offers insights to let customers understand a part of food culture through visuals of grocery store signs, influencing them to explore new stores. Moreover, store owners could use these findings to reflect on how their signage aligns with their intended identity and market position in a diverse city like New York. Ultimately, this project contributes to a deeper understanding of how everyday visual language often unnoticed shapes the way we navigate, experience, and connect with the multicultural food landscape of the city.
