Inspiring a stay-cation is the impetus for vintage-looking posters of local neighbourhoods, including some in Woolwich and Wellesley, produced by a local real estate company.
TrilliumWest has been making posters that showcase neighbourhoods in the region with the feel of the vintage tourism posters from the 1920s, 30s and 40s.
Molly Simpkins, a freelance graphic designer working with the company, is the creator behind the posters for locales in Woolwich, Wellesley and Wilmot, among other parts of the region.
The Woolwich posters feature nostalgic images of buckets on maple trees for the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival, an ice pond with some local hockey playing kids, and the West Montrose covered bridge.
Simpkins says of all the posters, the Woolwich ice hockey poster is the one she has been asked to make custom copies of the most, with parents asking for versions with their kids’ hockey jerseys and numbers.
The Wellesley poster features people skating on the pond in the Albert Erb Conservation area in the middle of town.
“Because Wellesley, it’s got lots of different things, but the pond is what sort of was the highlight of it for the residents and the people,” said Simpkins.
“It’s what local residents really take pride in, I think, is what we’re looking for,” said Bob Bunker, a broker and manager for TrilliumWest, of the images.
Other posters feature Wilmot, Drayton, Elora, Fergus, and multiple neighbourhoods in Guelph, Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo.
Bunker says the marketing team puts out a new poster every month, and they rotate through the cities and townships in the region.
“We’re trying to find that sense of community, I think, when these posters are being done. Like, what is it about that community? How do we encapsulate that into a poster?” he said.
To create these posters, Simpkins works with the company’s realtors who know each neighbourhood well, to determine what to focus on for each piece. Then, she uses photos from the internet and her own visits to put them together.
Once the idea and initial research is in place, each poster can take anywhere between five and 20 hours to create, she says.
The posters are available for anyone to pick up from TrilliumWest locations in Guelph and Kitchener, or they can be ordered online.
Bunker and Simpkins estimate they give away about 75 posters each month between the Guelph and Kitchener locations.
They also acknowledge that the posters present an idealized version of reality.
“I’m sure there’s bad everywhere in the world, but let’s find reasons to go out and explore our different neighborhoods and see the beauty,” said Bunker. “We live in one beautiful part of the world, and I think that’s often overlooked. And that’s really what we’re trying to focus in on, is, you know, let’s go to these places that are close to us and find that beauty.”
