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Leslieville Signage Phenomenon

Why, one may ask, do so many quaint little furniture boutiques in Leslieville have the same style of signage?

White serif type reads HARDWARE on blue sign with bronze border

Hardware (or, in the heavy-metal-umlaut version, Härdwäre)

Black serif type reads FABRIC HOUND on a white sign with red border

Fabric Hound (by Skeeter Jones, Leslieville business defender)

And then this trio of * & Company stores, owned by Steven Howard-Yandt and Robert Yandt-Howard (yes, Leslieville inverts):

Black serif type reads FLIK & COMPANY on a white sign with black border. Letters on window read A TWIST TO MODERN COUNTRY

Flik & Company

Black serif type reads FOREST & COMPANY on a white sign with black border. Letters on window read A TWIST TO MODERN COTTAGE

Forest & Company

Letters on window read A TWIST TO MODERN COTTAGE

Fleur & Company

Can we have a wee bit more typographic diversity in our twee tchotchke shops, please?

(I recall the now-defunct Saltbox Company, with its equally rectangular sign that was, at least, handlettered. I always felt oppressed that I was somehow expected to know what a “saltbox” was, or need one, or recognize the purpose of business of a store with that name.)

POSTED: 2006.05.28