At First Sight: An iconic Canadian national design treasure
Written by Vida Jurcic RGD
Vida Jurcic RGD takes us back to the Canadian National (CN) logo, designed in 1959, that symbolizes a progressive, dynamic and future-oriented company with a timeless lifespan.
It’s 1974, and here we are—my little Australian immigrant family together with another family from New Zealand. All nine of us, four adults and five young girls, are standing on an almost deserted railway platform in a sleepy suburb of Ontario just outside of Toronto.
Surrounded by wooden cargo crates filled with our belongings, we’re waiting for the passenger train that is to take us on a three-day journey across Canada to British Columbia. I’m 15 years old, taking it all in as I wait impatiently at this train station that looks like it’s from an episode of the Twilight Zone.
Eventually we hear a distant whistle and a great iron beast comes rumbling along the tracks, huffing and puffing as it slows down, but as the cars slide by, something extraordinary catches my eye. Something so sleek, modern and beautiful. It represented to me the simple, promising future that moving across the country would bring for me and my family. It was the Canadian National (CN) logo, designed in 1959 by Allan Fleming, Typographic Director and future Designer at Cooper and Beatty, a Toronto typography firm.
Allan was tasked with creating a logo that would show a progressive, dynamic, future-oriented company and that would have a long lifespan. I think he really captured this with the minimalist simplicity and elegance of the CN logo. The letterforms are fluid and create a route line—taking your eye on a journey from point A to point B. According to Allan, the continuous flowing line symbolized the “movement of people, materials and messages from one point to another.” And that’s precisely what this logo meant for me and my family—our movement across a vast country to start something new—a journey to an unknown, yet promising destination.
The CN logo is timeless. I believe that it will look modern and fresh forever. It is over 50 years old and has survived unchanged for all these years. It represents qualities CN valued at the time: efficient, seamless connections, smooth traffic flow, clarity of purpose, openness, honesty and an eye on the future. It has inspired my whole way of looking at design, my work and my design philosophy. My personal mantra is “When in doubt, take it out.” It stems from the profound effect that seeing that logo in 1974 had on me: the stripped-down use of form that told the story of Canadian National so eloquently yet so simply.
I teach Design Survey, a design history class, at the IDEA School of Design at Capilano University and cover the Bauhaus and International Typographic Movement. I am passionate about the Modernists. A wonderful website, Canada Modern, conceived and produced by Canadian creative director Blair Thomson in 2017, honours the Modernist movement in Canada from 1960 to 1985 and is well worth looking at for inspiration. Allan Fleming’s CN logo is the perfect example of this sort of enduring, timeless design. It is the foundation of my love of minimalism and clean design. I still look at CN train cars as they go by and reflect on my everlasting love affair with the logo.
Vida Jurcic RGD
Vida Jurcic RGD is a founding partner and Co-creative Director of Hangar 18 Design Continuum, an award-winning Vancouver design and branding firm with a legacy of strategic solutions spanning two decades. She has been an in-house art director/designer at the Hudson’s Bay Company and Woodwards Department Stores and has worked at various advertising agencies, including DDB and BBDO. She has judged many regional and national design competitions and sat on scholarship juries including the BC Arts Council. In addition, Vida currently teaches at the IDEA School of Design, Capilano University and has taught at Vancouver Film School and Langara in the past. She is an avid design history buff and part-time musician/Morris dancer.
