MacMillan Bloedel – What's the concept?
A look at the concept behind Lester Beall's 1960 logo for MacMillan Bloedel.
What’s the concept?
MacMillan Bloedel was a Canadian forestry company with headquarters in Vancouver. It was formed by a merger of Powell River Company, the Bloedel Stewart Welch Company and the H.R. MacMillan Company in 1951 and 1959.
Following these mergers, as the company diversified its product lines and formed subsidiaries, the need for a new logo became evident.
The new logo, designed alongside a new corporate identity by Lester Beall, sought to establish a consistent visual language across all of the corporation’s products and subsidiaries.
Launched in 1960 the new logo combined both a literal representation of the company’s activities in forestry products and expressed some of its character.
This was achieved through a stylised M with two coniferous trees set within its negative space, and by using symmetry and consistent line weight to suggest strength and purpose.
The logo was also described as balancing and expressing the rugged essence of the company’s forestry operations but also the precision control required to process these for use.
Transitional Logos
Transitional logos use a state change to play with notions such as growth, evolution and creation. This could be in stepped line thickness or size changes, differing heights, or smooth scaling. Sometimes these are given a sense of moment through the use of diagonals, or used to build concrete imagery such as trees for further conceptual layers. These lend themselves well to companies that make and manufacture, those that distribute, educate, build or offer wealth accumulation.
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