Canadian Pacific Forest Products – What's the concept?
A look at the concept behind Stuart Ash's 1989 logo for Canadian Pacific Forest Products.
What’s the concept?
In 1974 Great Lakes Paper was acquired by Canadian Pacific, a company created in 1971 to hold properties formerly owned by Canadian Pacific Railway. With this, its name was changed to Great Lakes Forest Products.
In the mid-1980s the company was amalgamated with Canadian International Paper Company, a former subsidiary of International Paper, to become Canadian Pacific Forest Products Limited.
The company produced a wide variety of products including newsprint roles, paper and roll cores, as well as living tree seedlings. It also offered services such as custom printing on paper products and the harvesting of wood.
The company’s formation was part of a line of takeovers and mergers. It now had a diverse product offering and a new name. These conditions generated the requirements for a distinctive new logo.
The logo balances a number of different elements whilst remaining simple. The circle represented the company’s increasing global presence and the cropped concentric rings referenced both rolls of paper and the growth rings of a tree.
At the centre, set within the negative space of the rings, a tree represents the source of all the company’s products and services.
The company later became Avenor, retaining the logo and pairing it with a distinctive bold logotype. Avenor was then bought by Bowater in the late 1990s. This saw the end of Avenor and Stuart Ash’s distinctive logo.
Eye Logos
There’s something wonderful about eye logos, perhaps it’s their immediate recognisability and connection, but also a whole host of associations that come with these, from literal sight to knowledge and insight. Despite the ubiquity of the eye, there’s real magic in making an eye logo distinctive and own-able. What’s your favourite eye logos?
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