After the retirement of Leonard Beaumont in 1962, Peter Dixon took over as head of the design team
He, and his team, were charged with the job of designing packaging for every item of Sainsbury's 'Own Label' brand
This was no mean feat, as during the 60s over a 1,000 new Sainsbury brand products were introduced
By the end of the sixties own brand lines accounted for over 50 per cent of Sainsbury's turnover
It was considered important to convey the 'unobtrusive good value' of the Sainsbury brand.
To do this Dixon set up and ran an in house design studio at Sainsbury's head office.
Dixon created restrained graphics which often made use of stylised, geometric illustrations.
There were few restrictions imposed on the design team. the one thing Dixon does remember is that "the company logo had to be prominent".
Design magazine described them as 'austere and even Bauhaus'.
At the time Dixon said "I wasn't even aware of the Bauhaus until it was used in the article, then I pursued it, found out who they were and what they were producing. I took it as a compliment."
The company director at the time, John Davan Sainsbury personally approved every design.
Eventually the design standard was rolled out company wide and included building design, shop front lettering, store layout, advertising and packaging design
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