Beautiful Signage in Portland

OK, so I'm posting about design in another city other than Vancouver again, but I had to remark about the beautiful signage in Portland, Oregon and how I feel Vancouver is lacking in this department.

It was especially notable in the Pearl District, where I saw so many beautiful signs with beautiful typography and detail. They coaxed me into the shops well before I was in front of them. The architecture was also new and funky, and the store fronts very appealing.

Some great examples are:

• Oblation Papers & Press (granted they are a paper and printing company so their design should be awesome)
• Olivia Belle Clothing
  
• Relish Designs
  

Interestingly, I just went to Google to do a search on for "portland pearl district" to find some photos to show you. Of course the first three sites in the Google SERPs are beautiful and well designed. So I thought I'd compare the results of the Vancouver SERPs for "yaletown vancouver" and what did I come up with? Some totally ugly sites that induce my gag reflex.

Is this just chance that it goes along with my observations that Vancouver has such poor signage, window display and weak design overall?

Could it be that Vancouver relies heavily on the naturally beautiful physical surroundings and therefore places less importance on design?

Or worse yet, are more of our designers here less skilled? There was definitely just a heated debate on Vancouver Craigslist about this!

I don't know the answers, but the questions are definitely worth further investigation!