Sign Observer

Kind of a random selection of signs I made years ago.

Click to enlarge.

Thornhill Farmers Market.

I’m going to be doing a series of posts here about streetscapes. Or shall we call them signscapes?

Practically speaking, I’ll need to take the photos at a higher resolution, host them off site, perhaps and definitely not take them at rush hours.

The next one I am working on it about 2K of signs.

Friday I was driving north on Morning Side on the eastern edge of Scarborough. The was constrcution at Finch Ave, so I decided to go around it. I was like finding the place where the sidewalks end. The city just ended. I drove past a school on a very suburban street from which very urban looking kids were leaving for the day, turned a corner and suddenly, there was a house with a horse in the front yard. The road went from there down into a valley at the bottom of which was this beautiful bridge.

I of course, stopped to take pictures of the signs.

Post-Metric and Pre-Digital

& They are hand painted, or a combination of screen printed and hand painted on retro reflective sheeting. The fact that the signs are metric means they were made and installed some time after 1971. being hand painted suggests they were made before the mid 1980’s.

Curiously, the .1 is smaller than the 4. Sort of an subliminal message that suggests scrunching down to avoid the overhead obstacle?

No, I guess not.

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These two late nineteenth century small town train stations, just north and a little east of Toronto, have been lovingly restored. According to their respective local heritage boards, accurately restored to reflect the periods they were built in. Markham is still, at least in part, a train station, the bulk of it being a community centre. Unionville Station has been put to some other use. I’m not sure sure what.

As much as I like the way the letters wrap around the texture of the siding, I think that in reality the station name signs would have been painted on boards in a shop. It would have been easier (and much cheaper) to have stations’ signs painted en mass in a centralized shop than to send a sign painter out to each site. These buildings were generally prefabricated and shipped (by rail, conveniently enough) to their locations.

I could be wrong about that of course. Quite possibly, there are all kinds of photos of these buildings with signs painted the way they are here, and that’s why they were painted the way they were painted. (If this is the case and someone has copies, I would love to see them: russ(dot)mcg(at)gmail(dot)com. I respect all copyrights and publish nothing with out permission) The purpose of this blog is not to offer history lessons. Especially on things I know little about, although I am interested in process, and if I learn more about this, I will post an update. I’m not here to take issue with how the work was done - Whether it is historically accurate or not, or if it’s even well done or not. Just to take note of the fact that is was done. Sometimes the accidents and mistakes of an enthusiastic amateur are more interesting than a perfectly executed example of sign painting. At least for the purposes of this blog. Now, I’m rambling.

If you are ever in Unionville or Markham, it is worth checking these stations out. It is great that they have been preserved. Their main streets are both have a very nice “ye olde” charm and character and lots of very nice signage to observe, although, to be honest, most of it is far too nice and new to make it into this blog.

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Richmond Hill at Yonge and Hwy 7. Not to be missed. There will be more about this sign later. Stay tuned, boys and girls.

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Steeles Avenue cuts across the top of Toronto. It’s the boundary between Toronto and the towns of Vaughn, Thornhill and Markham, which are all now amalgamations of many smaller towns and villages.

Slide Show

These are all from the same day, earlier in the winter, but I’m doing a bit of catching-up with this site, so things may be out of sequence. Not that it matters.

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Coffee Time. What can one say. Its a Donut chain here in Canada. Sort of a lowbrow Tim Hortons. Now with a new logo.

… And Yes, it was snowing when I took the photo. Seems to be a theme, doesn’t it.

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Well, they said it would snow again today. It did. This was my drive home at 3:30 in the afternoon.

Slide Show

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