Signed & Numbered
Address: 2320 South West Temple
Telephone: 801-596-2093
Website: signedandnumberedshop.com
District: South Salt Lake
“We’ve carved out a little niche. It’s not flashy. But it’s ours. And there’s meaning in that.” Phil Sherburne, owner of Signed & Numbered, grew up building things. Raised in the Salt Lake City suburbs when they were still open fields and construction sites, he remembers gathering leftover scraps and hammering them into forts, boxes, and chairs. “I think I was five when I made a little chair for my sisters,” he said. “Building just became a part of who I am.” That instinct, passed down through generations - his family came to Utah to work the railroads around the turn of the last century - has guided Phil’s entire life.
By 1996, a chance encounter - finding and returning $2,000 in cash at a coffee shop - gave Phil the seed money for his first set of tools. “Three months later, the cops gave it back to me. No one claimed it. So, I used it to start a woodshop.” He enrolled at the University of Utah, but dropped out soon after, choosing instead to follow his heart into woodworking full-time. In 1998, he moved into a space on Kilby Court and began carving out a life in Salt Lake’s creative scene.
A year later, Phil transformed his new space into Kilby Court, a raw and lively all-ages music venue that became a cornerstone of the city’s underground art world. “I was part of an art group called Borrowed Walls,” Phil explained. “At the time, everyone was moving off to bigger cities. But I thought, this place is cool. We should make something of it.”
The Kilby Court venue quickly became a hub for spoken word, bands, projections on gallery walls, "and a kind of curated chaos that could only happen in Salt Lake." It was in this world that Phil met Leia Bell, an artist from Tennessee who had moved to Utah and started designing show posters. Their creative collaboration soon became a life partnership. Leia’s posters were so popular that they began collecting works from other screen printers, and when they sold Kilby Court nearly a decade later, they had amassed an impressive archive of signed and numbered prints.
In 2008, Phil and Leia opened Signed & Numbered, named in honor of their collectible posters. It was originally located under the old Slowtrain Records downtown; the shop was built around their love for poster art. But over time, it was Phil’s hand-built frames - crafted from raw wood and archival materials - that took center stage.
“I’m not a good businessperson,” Phil says with a shrug. “But I care deeply about what we make.” His philosophy on craft was forever shaped during a visit to his brother-in-law’s house in California. “He had this super fancy furniture, and I just didn’t get it. It looked too polished - machine-made, cold. Then the sun came through the window just right, and I noticed a tiny dent in the wood. It was the flaw that made me see it was handmade. That little imperfection changed everything for me. It gave the table soul.”
The imperfect moment crystallized Phil’s belief in a happy medium - work that doesn’t scream “rustic” or “handmade,” but quietly holds the story of the person who built it. “You know it’s made by hand. You can feel it. That’s the kind of world I want to live in.”
Today, Signed & Numbered operates out of two South Salt Lake locations: one for production and one for retail. Their frames are unlike anything found in a traditional shop. “We don’t use premade molding. We build everything from raw wood - one at a time.” Most of their business still comes through Etsy, though they are working toward building their own platform. “Etsy’s been good, but it’s not made for businesses like ours. We’re ready for the next step.”
And still, a large portion of Signed & Numbered’s customer base hails from the early Kilby Court days - creatives, musicians, and artists who remember the days of warehouse shows and gallery strolls. “That whole art scene is still part of who we are.”
Phil and Leia are also dedicated to supporting local artists. Their shop sells consigned prints, giving ninety percent of the proceeds back to the artist - a model they have maintained for years. “We’re not the best at curating, but we try to be a resource for people. It’s a mix of work from anyone willing to share their art with us.”
The storefront itself is a hidden gem. Bright, colorful, and full of personality, it showcases not just the frames but the vision behind them. Custom options line the walls in every hue imaginable, from the tiniest frame for a beloved photo to oversized showstoppers meant for statement art. Local prints are tucked into bins, waiting to be discovered. It is truly a place where you could spend hours browsing - an ideal shop for finding the perfect frame for your child’s first painting, or a meaningful gift for a friend.
Despite the uncertainty surrounding their current location, which they do not own, Phil remains grateful. “We’ve been in this building since 2011. We know one day it’ll probably be gone. Everything around us is getting bulldozed for new development. But we’re here now, and we’re doing what we love.”
Phil is honest about the challenges ahead. “I know we’ve only scratched the surface of what our way of framing can be. We found our niche, and it works. But it’s bigger than me now. If it’s going to keep going, it needs more than just me.” And yet, it is clear: Phil would not trade this life for anything. “I love what I do. I love my crew. They’re amazing people. Leia and I, we really have a good life, and we’ve built something real here.”
