Blue cardboard sign with stand and white text reading ‘Card only checkout. It’s safer and quicker.’ with a graphic of a hand holding a credit card, used during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 at the Bounds Green Road Tesco Express, London

Supermarkets, such as Tesco, encouraged the use of card only payments as a safer alternative than money being passed between customers and staff. At the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, little was known about how coronavirus was spread so interactions between people were limited as much as possible. In November 2020, the Bank of England released results of research they commissioned into handling banknotes. It found that the risk of getting COVID-19 from money was lower than from breathing in the virus or touching items in store. Contactless payment limits were raised twice in the pandemic to encourage card use.

Tesco produced a range of signage in their distinctive colour palette and font with a team of copywriter and designers from Sherlock, a Brighton based strategic branding and retail design consultancy. Like all businesses, Tesco had to quickly develop a range of signage which was constantly adapted and updated to changing pandemic restrictions and guidance.