dt_toronto_geek
Superstar
A big no for me.
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Do You Like New Street Signs?
- Thread starter Mystic Point
- Start date
casaguy
Senior Member
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."
-----------
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."
adma
Superstar
That's one of the big issues here, I suppose...
Conrad Black
Senior Member
I like them as well. Can't wait until the entire city finally has a standard look.
Aaron
Active Member
Who 'loves' them? Show yourselves.
Typical design babble - taking the one word (recognizable) that perfectly describes the old signs and applying it to the new. Jeremy's type of yammering is exactly what irked me about what they were teaching at OCA when I attended in '95. Everything needed an explanation, touting its depth and turning it into garbage in the process. It's all render and pretense. Keep it simple, stupid - it's a piece of metal with lettering. The "designers" of the original, beloved signs understood this without even thinking. With all of the construction and change happening in this city, it's important to hold onto the little things we enjoy.
nfitz
Superstar
Well that's not going to happen - they've made it clear that they aren't going to replace every street sign, that they will only replace as necessary. Given that there are still signs on my street that date back almost 100 years, it will be well into the 2100s before all the existing signs wear out.
Coming through Greektown today, I couldn't help but think how much better the new signs would look than the horrid blue signs that are currently there. They seem pretty decent to me.
Archivist
Senior Member
The acorn signs, which are charming, were widely used Ontario. Ottawa had them some years ago, and they are visible in other towns across the province. Their current range is quite limited within the city, most neighbourhoods don't have them, and extending them to all would be quite expensive. With all due respect, I don't see many people ponying up any money to have them on their streets. If this model were proposed, I would expect the likely result even was that middle class neighbourhoods would be dotted with acorn signs, with others intermixed, while poorer areas and many suburban areas (where a sign of one kind or another would do little to assuage the urban blight anyways) would end up with some kind of cheaper version.
Anyways, I am not really opposed to the signs. As much as I like the acorn signs, I think expanding them to the entire city is just not going to happen, and I'm not sure if I were in charge of the decision that that's what I would do, given the cost.
Anyways, I am not really opposed to the signs. As much as I like the acorn signs, I think expanding them to the entire city is just not going to happen, and I'm not sure if I were in charge of the decision that that's what I would do, given the cost.
ShonTron
Moderator
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I have a similar feeling about this. They are nicer than most street signs out there, though I find the city hall logo a bit redundant (I want to see how the BIA-specific ones look). I know Peterborough had these, and you'll see them in some small towns (saw them recently in Elmvale).
Note that Toronto's arc street lighting, introduced not long after the acorn street signs, was also common across many southern Ontario towns and cities, like Peterborough, Hanover, and Fort Erie for sure (there were others), even in some of the Metro suburbs. Brampton used a smaller version that was seen here in the Yonge subway cut. Toronto's now pretty much the only place left with them.
W. K. Lis
Superstar
The old Toronto street name signs were 3x the price of the current new ones to make. At least they are better than the old suburban street name signs.
deerparker
Active Member
As posted a while back in http://www.urbantoronto.ca/showthread.php?t=3424, at the intersection of Yonge and College, the new street signs were added to three of the four light standards. I'm not sure why only three, and they don't have the Downtown-Yonge BIA logo. 
syn
Senior Member
This city keeps talking about changing their image, yet they continue to trip over themselves in the most basic areas. An updated version of the classic signs would've been great. Instead we get bland, generic signs that don't really match anything else in the city.
When it comes to the basic identifiers of a city (signage, furniture, branding etc.) this city is an absolute mess.
When it comes to the basic identifiers of a city (signage, furniture, branding etc.) this city is an absolute mess.
spaced
Active Member
compromise?
Why couldn't they have made the old 'acorn' signs for higher traffic areas and made simple ones (I'm thinking Joe Ontario flat piece of aluminum) for the rest of the areas? Couldn't they/we have saved just as much or possibly more? I guess that might have become quite bureaucratic though (who and why should 'A' neighbourhood has more acorns than 'B' neighbourhood). Just a thought.
Unfortunately 'generic' and 'corporate' seems to be a good description for the new signs... sigh.
Why couldn't they have made the old 'acorn' signs for higher traffic areas and made simple ones (I'm thinking Joe Ontario flat piece of aluminum) for the rest of the areas? Couldn't they/we have saved just as much or possibly more? I guess that might have become quite bureaucratic though (who and why should 'A' neighbourhood has more acorns than 'B' neighbourhood). Just a thought.
Unfortunately 'generic' and 'corporate' seems to be a good description for the new signs... sigh
.
Archivist
Senior Member
When it comes to the basic identifiers of a city (signage, furniture, branding etc.) this city is an absolute mess.
I understand your frustration, but in my mind the basic identifiers of a city are it's architecture, the spaces between the buildings like plazas and sidewalks and squares, and physical setting. When I think of Vancouver, I think of glassy towers and mountains. When I think of Sao Paulo, I think of highrise buildings chock-a-block to each other and Oscar Niemeyer. I am hard-pressed to remember much about the street signs or "furniture" from most places I've been. I've also, almost never, heard anyone comment after travelling to these places, "they had nice street signs". It's not that stuff like this is unimportant, it's just a whole lot less important than almost anything else.
I understand your frustration, but in my mind the basic identifiers of a city are it's architecture, the spaces between the buildings like plazas and sidewalks and squares, and physical setting. When I think of Vancouver, I think of glassy towers and mountains. When I think of Sao Paulo, I think of highrise buildings chock-a-block to each other and Oscar Niemeyer. I am hard-pressed to remember much about the street signs or "furniture" from most places I've been. I've also, almost never, heard anyone comment after travelling to these places, "they had nice street signs". It's not that stuff like this is unimportant, it's just a whole lot less important than almost anything else.
Long Island Mike
Senior Member
Toronto's new street signs...Okay,but...
Everyone: Interesting info on Toronto's new street signs here - the older acorn top signs have historical value and a unique character to them.
The new signs should only have the curved topper only on major throughfares like Yonge Street and an arrow pointing to the direction of the block or house numbers be added below-similar to Philadelphia's signs.
Their design is not bad-but it is overkill for more obscure streets. LI MIKE
Everyone: Interesting info on Toronto's new street signs here - the older acorn top signs have historical value and a unique character to them.
The new signs should only have the curved topper only on major throughfares like Yonge Street and an arrow pointing to the direction of the block or house numbers be added below-similar to Philadelphia's signs.
Their design is not bad-but it is overkill for more obscure streets. LI MIKE
deerparker
Active Member
Noticed a new sign today at Yonge & Dundas (under the older street sign) that says "Luminato Wy" (presumed to mean "way").