Still Out West

Downtown Edmonton is lousy with hand-painted signage on the sides of old brick buildings and I love it. I am sure their continued existence has more to do with the expense of painting over or removing them rather than any interest in perserving the heritage of this old craft, but I appreciate them nonetheless. While many of these signs advertise long dead products, names like Crown, Eaton, and even the Brit-owned Cunard evoke a certain Canadianess that I love terribly.

I also noticed several businesses utilizing new hand-painted signage on their buildings, but these new signs owe little to tradition, instead going to typical route of black and white Helvetica monstrosities advertising even worse nightclubs. But fuck that; let us take a moment to doff our hats in rememberance of What Was.








Though this sign for the Crystal Glass automotive repair shop is not quite in the family as the prior beauts, it is at least a distant cousin and I felt it deserved inclusion here. Points for the royalty-free Dennis the Menace.