They are without a doubt uninspired and corporate... but they are much easier to read. I'd love to see the other options that were turned down for this.
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New Toronto street signs debut to mixed reviews
The functional - some say sterile - blue-and-white sign, to be officially unveiled tomorrow in the Beach, will soon be everywhere
LISAN JUTRAS
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
May 20, 2009 at 4:45 AM EDT
Some three years after east-end residents voted on the "Beach" as their neighbourhood's official name - dumping the rival "Beaches" moniker - the decision will finally be sealed with a new street sign tomorrow.
Residents of the lakefront community have been waiting for the sign since 2006 because city hall was in the process of redesigning all of Toronto's signs.
"It went on hiatus for quite a while," said Deborah Etsten, executive director of the Beach Business Improvement Area. "I'm sure a lot of people are wondering where [the signs] disappeared to."
Tomorrow's unveiling at Queen Street East and Lee Avenue will make the Beach's BIA the first to officially receive Toronto's new blue-and-white street signs, which have already begun popping up as replacements for damaged signs elsewhere in the city.
Some critics have already panned the new design.
Toronto designer Neil Shinn called them "cheap and nasty." Commenters on Spacing magazine's website called them "sterile," "corporate" and "uninspired."
Allen Pinkerton, the city's manager of signs and pavement markings, said that during public consultations on the signs, "there were so many different objections, you couldn't keep anyone happy."
"We've had everything from, 'We love them,' to, 'We hate them,'" he said.
While Ms. Etsten believes the signs are "beautiful," affordability and function were key in the new design. The new signs are the official "city blue" of Toronto - that is, Pantone 647 - with white lettering and were designed to be highly visible, with room for a neighbourhood's logo.
The traditional signs that many downtown-dwellers think of as iconic cost roughly $150 apiece, says Mr. Pinkerton; they had stamped-metal lettering and were hand-painted. The new ones, which are retro-reflective, meaning they flare like cats' eyes when lit at night, cost half that.
The new street signs use a font type designed for maximum visibility on North American highways. The city will replace the old signs with new as the old ones become illegible, usually due to rust damage.
The company in charge of the new signs' design defended the new look.
Instead of a historical design, "it seemed appropriate to us to have a street-sign system that would be ... recognizable for a Toronto that looks forward rather than harkening back," said Jeremy Kramer, principal of Kramer Design Associates, who doesn't believe that the old signs were unique to Toronto.
The city appears set to cash in on any nostalgic backlash against the new signs: The department of transportation is planning on selling the damaged or illegible signs at some undetermined point in the future.
As practical as they may be, the new signs have yet to win the hearts of all Torontonians.
"I think functionality is overplayed," Mr. Shinn said. "If you can't read the old street signs, you shouldn't be driving, for a start."