Say hello to our new logo
Corporate logos are everywhere. They are so prevalent and deceptively simple that we often don’t recognize that they are extraordinarily sophisticated little symbols that carry a disproportionate amount of communication responsibility. For good reason, logo design is an elite field of an already complex business; the brainiest of all graphic design. To quote legendary graphic designer Paul Rand:
The principal role of a logo is to identify, and simplicity is its means... Its effectiveness depends on distinctiveness, visibility, adaptability, memorability, universality, and timelessness.
That’s a tall order. It’s all about identity, and part of the process of rebuilding a museum like ours is to rebuild its identity. The logo is a key feature and becomes nearly as important as the design of the museum itself because the logo is often the first impression that people will get of it. If our sophisticated new museum has a logo that looks like it belongs on a box of breakfast cereal, we may have difficulty attracting an audience. Conversely, it is possible to have a logo that is too impressive, that promises too much. Mr. Rand speaks again:
A logo derives meaning from the quality of the thing it symbolizes, not the other way around.
In the case of our logo development, many questions needed to be answered. Does it reflect our content? Is it memorable? Is it unique? Will it work alongside the Bank of Canada logo? Does it evoke our building? Can it work in multiple sizes? Does it make me look fat? OK, that last one’s pretty low on the list, but all the demands made upon this humble little design are a bit mind-boggling.
This highly adaptable design can be tilted, shifted, stretched and overlaid in many different ways and colours for any number of uses.
And here it is. What do you think? Nice, eh? We like it. It’s a very flexible design and right now our graphics team is busy adapting it to a dozen different uses and formats. We believe it will serve us a long time and now we just have to make sure our new museum will be up to our logo’s standard. No problem there.
We want to hear from you! Do you have an idea for a blog post you’d like to see?
Content type(s):
Blog posts
The Museum Blog
February 2, 2023
Teaching art with currency
By: Adam Young
From design to final product, bank notes and coins can be used to explore and teach art, media and process.
Content type(s):
Blog posts
Subject(s):
Arts
Grade level(s):
Grade 05,
Grade 06,
Grade 07 / Secondary 1,
Grade 08 / Secondary 2,
Grade 09 / Secondary 3,
Grade 10 / Secondary 4,
Grades 11 and 12 / Secondary 5
January 20, 2023
New Acquisitions—2022 Edition
It’s a new year—the perfect time to look back at some notable artifacts the Museum added to the National Currency collection from 2022. Each object has a unique story to tell about Canada’s monetary and economic history.
Content type(s):
Blog posts
December 6, 2022
Money: it’s a question of trust
By: Graham Iddon
The dollars and cents we use wouldn’t be worth anything to anybody if we didn’t have confidence in it. No matter if it’s gold or digits on a hard drive, public trust is the secret ingredient in a successful currency.
Content type(s):
Blog posts
Subject(s):
Economics
November 14, 2022
The day Winnipeg was invaded
By: David Bergeron
People on the street were randomly stopped and searched, and some were even arrested and imprisoned in an internment camp. Even German marks replaced Canadian currency in circulation—in the form of If Day propaganda notes.
Content type(s):
Blog posts
Subject(s):
History
Grade level(s):
Grade 10 / Secondary 4,
Grades 11 and 12 / Secondary 5
