Roots Corporation (doing business as Roots) is a publicly held Canadian brand that sells apparel, leather bags, small leather goods, footwear, athletic wear, and home furnishings. The company was founded in 1973 in Toronto, Ontario, by Michael Budman and Don Green. In 2015, Roots was sold to Searchlight Capital Partners LP, an American investment firm. The company's design centre and leather factory are in Toronto, Ontario. Roots reportedly has approximately 2,000 employees in Canada. Roots factories exist globally, and details of these factories are not disclosed by the parent company. Roots started using the beaver logo in 1985 with the launch of their athletic brand. The logo was designed in the 1970s by graphic artists Heather Cooper and Robert Burns. The logo features a beaver which is the national animal of Canada, on top of tree branches. with the typography of the company name below it set created by Oswald Cooper in 1919 in the Cooper font he created. History In 1973, Michael Budman and Don Green founded Roots, initially a footwear company that sold negative-heel shoes, before expanding their products. The Kowalewski family and their family business, the Boa Shoe Company, were the first makers of Budman and Green's negative-heel shoes, which became Roots' defining product. In August 1973, Roots opened its first store on Yonge St. near the Rosedale subway station in Toronto. A couple of months later, Roots bought the Upin and Ipin Company and opened their own leather factory. By the end of 1973, Roots had stores in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and several U.S. locations. Roots' negative-heel shoes competed with similar shoes sold by Kalsø Earth Shoe, which had first entered the North American market in 1970. Experts express varying opinions on whether negative-heel shoes are good or bad for one's feet. Expansion As the demand for Roots' negative-heel shoes continued, the Roots factory expanded. By the fall of 1975, the factory that had made only 30 pairs of shoes a day was making more than 2,000. Later that year, Roots decided to experiment with casual apparel. By 1977, Roots had expanded to 65 retail outlets across North America and Europe and 250 employees. Roots then began the transition from making negative-heel shoes to making footwear with a wedge sole, and introduced classic handbags to their lineup. The company began wholesaling bags, footwear, belts, and leather jackets to Canadian retailers like Eaton’s and Holt Renfrew, and