An image of photos, calendars, and notes arranged across the walls of a relatively modern apartment can be seen in a commercial that was published in December 2016. The Sesquicentennial logo, which is discrete in appearance and takes the shape of a red thread that weaves through the wall and links the various excursions and journeys, is one of them. The narrator urges all Canadian citizens to relax and get ready for the sesquicentennial celebration of Canada as an unidentified Canadian takes a nap on a couch. (Huffington Post). Public festivities and celebrations are crucial to developing a feeling of national identity. Canada as a country celebrates 150 years of state nationalism this year, 2017. With a close similarity to the 1967 Centennial celebration, the memorial is a nation-building activity and provides an opportunity of either redefining or refining the Canadian identity (Cotter 8). One of the main objectives of the commemoration was to brand the nation. The citizen’s nostalgia and the reduction of the Canadian history into timely narratives lead to sharing of ideals. The performance of the sesquicentennial consisted of a variety of contemporary Canadian cultures including communal projects, advertisements, artifacts, hockey games, designing of national logos and brands. The celebration involved sharing Canada’s cultures, identity, ideologies, social values and norms. This review, therefore, seeks to evaluate the sesquicentennial logo and its function as a national symbol and brand.
Analysis of the Sesquicentennial Logo
At the center of the cultural and branded nationalism is the sesquicentennial logo. It is composed of celebratory diamonds arranged or styled according to the shape of the iconic maple leaf. It consists of four diamond shapes at the center and an additional number of diamonds extending to the periphery. Over 300 entries of the multi-colored design that featured diamond shapes that varied in size were taken into account by the federal government’s national logo during the design competition that involved students only (Darwin 45). The winning sesquicentennial logo was designed by, Arianna Cuvin, a 19-year-old student from Toronto. She designed two versions a multicolored one and a red version of the logo. The four base diamonds were originally colored orange and red but were changed later to complement the red color of the Liberal logo. The Canadian Heritage defines the iconic logo as a series of celebratory gems,” arranged according to the shape of the highly recognized maple leaf – a lasting Canadian symbol.
The Sesquicentennial logo was designed based on a pre-existing national structure – the maple leaf. The maple leaf’s custom usage as a symbol in Canada is traced back to the early 1700s when the Canadian settlers of French origin as their official emblem adopted it. It is the most recent update of historical logos which evolve continuously over time to reflect the present aesthetic and communal preferences while persisting to be sufficiently recognizable to trigger images and emotions it represents in citizen-consumers’ minds. The logo is a striking resemblance to the continental logo of 1967. It was composed of eleven multicolored, equatorial triangles emerging from a single stem; ten triangles represented each province whereas, and one triangle represented the two territories. In general, every one of the triangles embodied a unique aspect of Canadian identity established on the unique features of each province.
The logo is a national symbol representing the country`s cultural heritage and history. Various meanings have been adopted with time and represented in the media. An example is a short video was released into the social media by the Canadian heritage in 2016.It portrays the logo with close similarity to various shapes including of a wind turbine, a boat, and a snowflake tree. The symbols are a representation of the four seasons and corners of the country`s land coverage. The showcase ends with the logo springing out of a seed into a fully formed symbol to represent the spring, a new season of celebration in Canada.
First, the shape of the logo is built from the shape of the maple leaves of the maple tree. The distinctive leaves are a symbolic feature of the natural beauty of the geographical landscape of Canada and the beauty of the culture of the citizens. Trees have played important roles in the historical development of Canada. They have continued to be part of commercial, environmental and aesthetic importance. Maples are of great importance to the nation with respects to economic growth and aesthetic value. They supply valuable wood produces in addition to sustaining the maple sugar industry. This represents the importance of sustaining and promoting the cultural heritage of the country. Moreover, the symbol represents diversity and multiculturalism, which is evident in Canada. There are over 150 species of maple trees in America (genus Acer), out of which ten are abundant and easily identifiable in every province in Canada. They include black, silver, sugar, big leaf, striped, vine, mountain, and Manitoba maples. The diverse maple species is an arboreal emblem of Canada`s diversit.
The diamonds represent the rich cultural heritage of the consumer-citizens of the country. The four large diamonds embody the original four provinces that were involved in the confederation in 1987. They include Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario. The other gems represent the other provinces and territories that were included after the confederation in 1987. The thirteen shapes on the maple leaf and the recurrent triangular shape generate a sense of unison and harmony between the provinces.
The logo designer, Ariana Cuvin, created two varieties; a multi-colored version to represent Canada’s diversity whereas the red outlined version to express unity and pride (“Biography of Ariana”). The predominant use of red is no surprise; named one of the national colors in 1921, red is synonymous with Canada while purple traditionally represents royalty and also signifies creativity, success, and wisdom (Cotter 42)
Role of the Sesquicentennial Logo in building Canadian Nationalism
According to the Sesquicentennial Commission, the logo has a representative role, functional role as a decorative emblem that can be reproduced. First, the logo represents the rich history of Canada. It also educates the upcoming generations on the cultural heritage and traditions. The heritage dates back to the year 1867 and includes the pre-industrial era and colonial era. The logo highlights the four original provinces, which helped shape the current cultural diversity of the Canada due to Scottish, English and French origins. However, according to the reviews of various citizens in the Post media News File in 29th June 2017, the logos maple leaf is shallow and has little historical significance as it has no story to tell. The writer, P champion compares it to the national amnesia. The logo fails to prompt ideologies, nostalgia and emotions hoped to elicit from the citizens.
Moreover, the logo plays a major role in Canadian nationalism by uniting the various provinces and cultures in Canada. It creates a sense of unity among the people. The design embodies all the thirteen provinces in the form of triangles in a single compound maple leaf to represent unity and togetherness. However, various scholars argue that the sesquicentennial logo works by hiding the discrepancy in the significance of the multiplying and evolving cultural groups. The logo only reveals the existence of one triangle to represent territories hence shadowing the fact that there are different cultures within the specific territory (Darwin 5). Despite the fact that the confederation was originally a union of four provinces in 1867 and the subsequent celebrations was to include all regions of Canada, the logo exclusively represented the west origins of the commemoration and completely masked those of eastern origins. Therefore, the logo is merely a graphic representation of Canada and its federal government aimed at highlighting the diverse collection of ethno-cultural communities. Therefore, the rudimentary design is a betrayal of unity (Cotter 88).
The logo thus leads to the aspect of imagined communities, which is defined as a false essence, invention, and imagination of the nation to have so much in common. Benedict Anderson, a historian, concurs, stating that when a nation is compelled under a deceptive sense of union, the citizenry’s unity is fake because the respective practitioners have never convened. He argues out that the sense of unity is imagined and the bond between Canadians is unauthentic as most of them are strangers to each other. Canada is woven together through symbols, political and social narratives, as opposed to actual personal alliances.
The logo actively establishes the value of national branding which fosters nationalism. The logo is a brand of the sesquicentennial message of national pride, unity, and celebration, reflecting a diverse nation with a rich historical background and a hopeful future. Interbreed an international branding agency released a report in 2005. The report ‘Branding in Canada’ revealed that humility, diversity, and passiveness were the main reasons as to why the countries brand was unnoticed in the international community and therefore a national liability (Cotter 30). Therefore, thirteen provinces in the emblem depict the country’s political brand that was first crafted under the conservatives followed by the liberals. The logo has been used to represent most of the commercial commodities originating from Canada in the international market. The outlined form of the logo permits for its promotion as a brand due to increased flexibility.
The public’s reaction to the logo was negative. Championed by the graphic design community, the consumer-citizen expressed their concern over the design describing it as amateurish. Some complained that the design was too decorative and complicated to understand in comparison to the continental logo by Ash in 1967.The national graphic design community criticized the sesquicentennial logo design competition claiming it was exploitative to the students and degrading to the graphic design community. However, Ariana contradicts confirming she was not exploited by the procedure (Ferreras 14)
Conclusion
The sesquicentennial logo on the overall can be viewed, not only as Canada‘s national symbol but also as an indication of the great diversity among the citizens. In addition to this, it also establishes national branding which in itself promotes national unity. The country‘s rich history is also clearly brought out in the logo. This gives heritage to Canadian generations to come. The red design of the sesquicentennial logo also shows pride in the nationality. Despite the image being designed the maple leaf, the logo reminds one of Canada‘s vast variety of maple tree species. This goes a long way to show the country`s beauty. However, the logo has some flaws, or at least it seemingly does. Criticized as being of being a false representative of unity among the citizens, amateurish. The logo also masks the eastern origin of Canada giving a false impression of the country‘s roots. Like every great work of art, the sesquicentennial logos comes with conflicting opinions of admiration or despise. In conclusion, the sesquicentennial logo is effective as an emblem of unity and cultural heritage despite the many setbacks.
Works Cited
Darwin,Veronique. “Expo 67 – An Image of Unity, an Image of Diversity.” The Atlas: UBC Undergraduate Journal of World History7 (2011): 1-9. Print.
Elise Cotter, Being Canadian; Formulating and Branding National Identity. April 2017. Print.
Ferreras, Jesse. “Canada's 150th Anniversary Logo Is Here. Designers Are Taking It Badly.” HUFFINGTONPOST.ca. The Huffington Post Canada, 28 Apr 2015. Web. 28 Sept 2016. Print
