Mucca redesigned Fairway Market’s own-label essentials to be visually consistent, legible, and approachable, using bold typography, uncluttered layouts and a series of product illustrations to make staples easy to find without calling attention to low price.
Mucca created a restrained, cohesive identity for Fairway’s more than 300 own-label everyday essentials using simple layouts and bold typography.
A series of illustrations by Maya Stepien gives the range personality while keeping visual hierarchy uncluttered and information legible.
The Essentials line is intentionally distinct from Fairway Collection, which uses a black, minimal palette to read as premium.
Fairway Market, founded in 1933, is a New York regional supermarket known for a broad selection and a New York character. The retailer offers more than 300 own-label 'everyday essentials'—milk, butter, beans, broth, yoghurt and similar staples. Over time those own-brand products accumulated inconsistent packaging that lacked a clear point of view.
Mucca, a New York-based creative studio focused on food and drink, was engaged to create a packaging system that would be affordable-looking but consistent and easy to find. Instead of making the range shout "cheap," Mucca gave Essentials a quietly confident look: simple, ordered, and approachable.
Design decisions that shape the range
How it compares to other own-label strategies
The article contrasts Fairway Essentials with other approaches, such as Asda's Just Essentials, which opted for high-visibility, warning-sign-level colour and typography to emphasise findability but drew criticism for making cheaper choices conspicuous. Mucca's Essentials aims for findability through clarity and cohesion rather than loudness.
Relationship with Fairway Collection
The new Essentials packaging is neat and ordered without appearing sterile. It maintains visual hierarchy so necessary information is visible and easy to scan. Importantly for a program that spans hundreds of products, the system is flexible across sizes, shapes and materials while preserving a recognisable identity.
For supermarket own-labels the design challenge is specific: make products affordable-looking and findable while avoiding stigma or confusion. Mucca's solution demonstrates that restraint, strong typographic hierarchy and a consistent illustration style can create a middle ground where everyday products feel decent, organised and approachable—without pretending to be luxury.
Mucca's redesign of Fairway's Essentials uses simplicity and illustration to deliver clarity, consistency and warmth across a large own-label program, and pairs effectively with a darker premium line so both tiers read differently yet belong to the same brand family.
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