I've been saying how much I like the 1913  Robie Street Reservoir and my Halifax Bloggers colleague Peter Ziobrowski has posted a great construction history of the building. Amazing how derelict it looked in 1945 before receiving a new roof. All this talk made me remember a surprising reservoir structure we happened upon in Bangor Maine a… Read More

In 1971 I took a design history class at NSCAD and it changed how I saw the physical world. The teacher was Tony Mann, who had incredible enthusiasm for objects and typography and design. One of the many things he opened my eyes to was the industrial aesthetic, the special look of industrial buildings and objects.  In the 70s and… Read More

This week Halifax Examiner linked to a story about a branding proposal that the town of Yarmouth is working on. Their consultants recently presented a word mark concept and a recommendation for a tagline: on the edge of everywhere. I'm fond of Yarmouth and was pleased to hear they are thinking about their identity. Commenters on the Examiner… Read More

Folks who follow this blog will notice that almost any sign or example of public typography will attract my attention. It can be a message in chalk on the sidewalk or a memorial cast in bronze, someone tried to communicate with us so let's pause and appreciate their effort. In this post I've put together… Read More

I've done several posts recently that encouraged you to notice and acknowledge surfaces we often ignore (carpets in airports and streets in historic photos of Halifax). In that vein this post is an opportunity to show some old street and sidewalk surfaces that I have witnessed but that have mostly disappeared. In the nineteenth century, the best sidewalks… Read More

The Portland Oregon Airport is changing its carpets. I suspect you're  thinking this doesn't seem like much of a story but it turns out that the people of Portland actually like their airport carpet (which was installed about 25 years ago). You can pursue the story  here. And you also might not be surprised that I've… Read More

In several Halifax Examiner posts ( December 5 and January 9) Tim Bousquet has commented on a favourite episode of the 99% Invisible podcast. It tells how the automobile industry created the myth of the reckless pedestrian and branded streets as places where people don’t belong. Tim writes: “For almost the entire history of streets — 8,000 years… Read More

A lot of you are fans of the podcast 99% Invisible, “a tiny radio show about design, architecture & the 99% invisible activity that shapes our world.” It is breezy and fascinating and the host Roman Mars is a treasure. If I had a podcast I’d want to sound exactly like Roman. The programs appeal… Read More

This is a happy story except for the very bad thing that happens in the beginning. The rest is such good news it somehow makes the bad thing feel like... magic? fantasy? It is also an old story from the mid 1990s. It was a cold winter morning. We had an old, used Volvo station… Read More

Many of you will not be aware of St Paul's Parish Hall that once was a strong presence on Argyle Street. Bits of the building survive, buried in the facade of the office building immediately south of the Auction House bar. (This is a screenshot from Street View.) When you see what the Hall looked like… Read More