I've lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn for ten years. In that time, I've watched bodegas and dollar stores slowly (then quickly) give way to boutiques and gastropubs. Like any resident of an active and thriving city, I often see a street or storefront as much for what it is as what it was. I'll not mourn the loss of the bodega below my apartment that sold expired condensed milk and hosted cockfights, but it's a genuine shame to see the old signage go.

That's why I'm filled with irrational joy every morning when I pass David's Laundry: The letters, hand-painted from the inside ... the slightly orientalized "R" ... the backwards apostrophe and "N." The MFA in me thinks about outsider art, primitivism and the artist's mark. The designer in me thinks about Postscript and TrueType. But if there's anything I can take with me on my way to work, it's that my affinity for digital type hasn't completely scrubbed away my appreciation for the whimsical. There's room enough for craft, old storefronts and backwards "N's."