Taste; an exploration of food locale storefronts and class significations
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- Geosocial background
- Graphic Design Frameworks
Analysis
- Colour, Hues and Shades
- Colour, Contrast
- Typography
- Illustrations and Imagery
- Spatial Hierarchy and Information
- Elements together
- English Pubs and Heritage Vernacular
- Reappropriating Diasporic Vernacular
Conclusion
Introduction
Food exists at the intersection of biological necessity and culturally-constructed choice, acting as a key agent in producing diversity within modern society. Being a result of standardised (industrialised processing of ingredients and tools) as well as organic (cultural-political) systems, it exists not just as sustenance but as a signifier. Neither the significance of food nor its capacity to associate and communicate is unfamiliar to us; the environment food is situated in similarly functions as a signifier. “The product as bought—that is, experienced by the consumer is by no means the real product” (Barthes, 2018, p21), and much of the arbitrary value we assign to eating lies in our perception of its surroundings. This translates the consumer’s desire for a product into a desire for an experience. However, much of the various contexts food sits in and the effects this has on the act of consumption has thus far been understudied (Spence, 2015, p32).
Judging a book by its cover—judging a locale by its storefront—is an inevitable behaviour. Design elements of an establishment serve as extrinsic cues consumers use to form snap judgements of quality and value before direct engagement (Bitner, 1992). The consumer can then be defined in two senses: firstly, as someone who’s literally eating food and secondly, as a participant of society consuming a product of culture. Pierre Bourdieu’s critique of class in ‘Distinction’ underpins this research’s exploration of consumption, with his sociology work famously addressing power dynamics in society and influencing much of today’s social science studies. Bourdieu discusses the transfer of power in regards to cultural capital and legitimacy, subjective metrics this research will utilise. He states that “cultural consumption (is) predisposed, consciously and deliberately or not, to fulfil a social function of legitimating social differences.” (Bourdieu, 1984, p7), where social differences are largely dictated by class position. Class can then be established in two symbiotic senses: it can refer to the objective socio-economic class one resides in and also allude to the subjective idea of having so-called elite tastes or manners (‘classy’). Therefore, consumers partaking in social and economic activities of eating is no different than the participation of society’s class divisions.
This research deconstructs how elements within food locale* storefronts participate in the signalling and reproduction of class in order to uncover the contexts behind class distinction and encourage nuance towards everyday consumption choices. Photography is the primary methodology of data gathering, paralleling a pedestrian-to-be-consumer’s point of view in the visual reception of a storefront (while taking into consideration the locale’s cost of dining*). Analysis is conducted under the framework of graphic design principles and elements to explore significations that might arise in consumers, consciously or sub-consciously.
To frame the lens of how research was conducted: storytelling of place-based dynamics has been a part of my graphic design practice in recent years. Whether it was to raise awareness for communities or shed light on individual perspectives, my goal—as is with this research—is to engage others with nuances in experience and culture. Additionally, my personal position as a Singaporean-Hong Kong migrant residing in London motivates much of my curiosity toward a multicultural understanding of sites.
*Cost of dining definitions (price per person):
£ = £10 and under
££ = £10-£20
£££ = £20 and over
Geosocial Background
In discussing culture and food, this research investigates East London’s culinary scene as a representation of economic and cultural diversity. Data from the Indices of Multiple Deprivation shows that many of its neighbourhoods fall within the top 10–20% most deprived areas in England, while adjacent districts have experienced rapid gentrification and rising property values (London Datastore, 2021). Such close proximity of wealth disparity intensifies the distinctions of consumption in retail and food environments (Trust for London, 2021). The correlation between East London’s socio-economic classes and ethnic makeup is notable due to its historical roots; the site has been a primary settlement zone for migrant communities since the nineteenth century—including Jewish, Caribbean, South Asian, African, Eastern European (Panayi, 2010), and more recently, East and South East Asian populations (Hackney Council News, 2025). This makes East London especially suitable for investigating graphic design’s functions past decoration and as a mechanism through which classed taste and cultural meaning are negotiated. A total of 56 locales were analysed across East London—of which, the primary food served is Western cuisine in 31 locales and migrant* cuisines in 25 locales.
Graphic Design Frameworks
In analysing storefronts through a graphic design lens, the dominating emphasis on European and North American visual sensibilities in the canon (Toppins, 2025) cannot go unacknowledged. Even amongst those of non-Western background, this lens is largely adopted in the perception of design quality due to the historically global intrusion of colonialism; historical analyses of graphic design in settler colonial contexts like South Africa reveal colonial power dynamics shaping what is recognised as ‘high design’ (Pretorius, 2015). This research acknowledges Eurocentric frameworks in analysing according to the adherence to canonical graphic design principles and usage of elements—including colour, typography, space and hierarchy.
Colour
Hues and Shades
Colour is oftentimes the first element registered in the recognition of something, particularly in cases of brief exposure (Witzel and Gegenfurtner, 2018), like when one glances at storefronts while walking down the street. Pre-19th century periods saw colour production being constrained by resource availability, cost and durability of pigments—which gave various colours associations of scarcity. Modern technologies enable access to a wide and relatively standardised spectrum of colour on the printed storefront; despite this, colour still operates as a signifier loaded with historical and cultural meanings that gets decoded by consumers, regardless of the designer’s conscious intent.
Starting the analysis from a basic colour wheel of hues and shades, the storefronts are sorted based on their most prominent colour. There is no obvious trend relating to the cost of dining from figure 2, but a trend emerges in two clusters in the yellow-red and green-blue areas, which are notably on opposite sides of the chart. Warm colours invite attention and quick engagement, often being utilised and associated with casual dining spots, while cool colours are often linked with calmness, health, quality, and sophistication (Peek, 2017). Interestingly, 56% of the yellow-red cluster food locales serve Asian cuisine and 69% of the blue-green cluster ones serve Western cuisine (an additional 15% in the latter cluster serving Asian cuisine but adopting Western aesthetics on their storefront).
Seen in figure 3, Asian cuisine storefronts gather in the yellow-red region and are specifically of Eastern and Southern origin. These warm colours carry meanings symbolic to their respective cultures; red is often associated with good fortune and ceremonial auspiciousness in China and India, orange signifies spirituality and purity in South Asian religious traditions, and yellow is linked to royalty and harmony across Chinese and Indian rituals (Zhou and Taylor, 2018) (Galustyan and Papchenko, 2015). From the western perception, these colours’ associations with fast food began with the success of Mcdonald’s (figure 4)—where the brand’s choice of colours came from their energetic and approachable qualities (Cutolo, 2022). Two-thirds of the documented franchise fast food locales make up a quarter of this category, demonstrating how fast food chains followed in Mcdonald’s footsteps with similar palettes (Bannarasee, 2024). The marketing convention becomes self-reinforcing and strengthens the warm colour’s significations of convenience, affordability, and subsequent lower-class positioning. This potentially influences the class perceptions of Asian stores that adopt these colours for unrelated reasons.
While the East and South Asian relations to warm tones stand as active choices made to signify cultural symbolism, Western ties with cool tones (figure 5) can be argued to be more of a passive choice subconsciously informed by European history. An example is deep blue’s association with wealth, a relationship that dates back to Renaissance art. Ultramarine was a rare pigment as valuable as gold in 15th century Europe due to its production process (Plesters, 1966). As seen in figure 6, the pigment is recognisable in its usage to paint the Virgin Mary’s robes during the Renaissance period—imbuing holy and sacred qualities onto the colour. Residing in the same colour family, navy blue’s name has its former half originating from the British Royal Navy (Oxford English Dictionary, 2024), where their uniforms’ dominant colour has become synonymous with the military force’s associations with rationality and institutional power. It would not be a far-cry to state that the colour’s symbolism permeates most cultures due to the British maritime empire’s global prominence spread through colonialism. Furthermore, the production of indigo dyes that made navy blue possible was itself deeply entangled with colonial economies, particularly through plantation cultivation in colonies where labour was exploited (Yale Center for British Art, 2019). Power becomes linked to the upper-class; it’s unlikely that storefront designers intend for their choices to signify Catholic, militant-imperialist, or colonial slavery ideas—yet, this latent and subsequently high-class signification lingers in modern culture.
These trends in colour start to establish a relationship between ethnic cultures and class divisions. Regardless of intention behind colour choice across cuisines, colour functions as a historically-loaded signifier of class when read through dominant frameworks of visual perception shaped by colonial legacies and Eurocentricity. Their ability to override culturally-specific colour codes is debatable, but this potential to re-inscribe hierarchies of taste within our perceptions nonetheless exists.