The Conseil du Centenaire de la Confédération, known in English as the Canadian Centenary Council, was a private organization formed in 1960 to encourage and assist Centennial projects and celebrations by acting as a national clearing house and information centre. It worked in close collaboration with the Centennial Commission, the official government body created to plan Canada’s 1967 Confederation centennial observances. The Council comprised 800 member organizations and promoted centennial activities in the private sector. [1] [2]
Design and History
The visual identity associated with the Conseil du Centenaire de la Confédération is the Centennial symbol created for Canada’s 1967 Confederation centennial celebrations. The symbol was designed by Stuart Ash, a Canadian graphic designer who was working at the typesetting and design firm Cooper & Beatty in Toronto at the time. [3] [4]
According to the Alliance Graphique Internationale, after a failed design competition to create the Centennial logo, the Canadian government approached Cooper & Beatty, where Ash worked, to create a logo. The government chose Ash’s maple leaf constructed from eleven equilateral triangles, one of the first times the maple leaf had been officially chosen to represent the country. [3]
Ash later relocated to Ottawa to work at the office of Paul Arthur & Associates, who were tasked with the implementation of the identity. It was there that Ash wrote and created the graphics manual controlling the symbol’s guidelines and graphic use. [5]
Meaning and Symbolism
The Centennial symbol is a stylized maple leaf constructed from eleven equilateral triangles. The triangles represent Canada’s ten provinces and the Northwest Territories, the accepted geography of Canada at the time. [6] [7]
Contemporary descriptions of the symbol confirm this reading. A souvenir lapel pin produced for the centennial celebrations describes the logo as “the symbol for the Centennial of Canadian Confederation: eleven equilateral triangles representing the ten provinces and Canadian North, arranged to form a stylized maple leaf,” with the dates “1867/1967” accompanying the mark. [8]
Ash himself described the construction of the mark in an interview with Radio-Canada: “À l’époque du logo du centenaire… donc j’ai formé 11 triangles équilatéraux formant une audacieuse feuille d’érable” (at the time of the centennial logo, I formed 11 equilateral triangles making a bold maple leaf). [9]
Typography and Design
The Centennial symbol was designed as a geometric construction of eleven equilateral triangles. The graphics manual created by Ash at Paul Arthur & Associates established the symbol’s guidelines for graphic use and formal applications across the centennial identity program. [5] The mark was applied widely across centennial materials, including pins, medals, posters and official documents, often paired with the dates 1867 and 1967. [8]
Logo Index is an independent educational archive covering logos, visual identities and graphic design history. All trademarks and brand assets remain the property of their respective owners.
