A Crown corporation with two language services.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, in French the Société Radio-Canada, is branded CBC/Radio-Canada. English Wikipedia describes it as a Crown corporation that serves as Canada’s national public broadcaster for radio and television, with its English-language service known as CBC and its French-language service as Radio-Canada. The two names run side by side through its history and through its logos, which were drawn to work in both languages.

The corporation grew out of an earlier body. English Wikipedia says the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, set up in 1932, operated broadcasting services and regulated broadcasting in Canada, and in 1933 took over the broadcasting facilities of CNR Radio, the network that Canadian National Railways had built between 1923 and 1932 using railway telegraph lines. The commission was replaced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on 2 November 1936, when the Canadian Broadcasting Act came into force.

The new corporation inherited the commission’s stations and network arrangements. English Wikipedia says it was organised as a Crown corporation with a board of governors, that Leonard Brockington was elected its first chairman, and that Gladstone Murray served as general manager with Augustin Frigon as assistant general manager. In December 1937 the CBC set up a separate French-language radio network, and it remained the country’s broadcasting regulator until 1958, when that role passed to the newly created Board of Broadcast Governors.

The CBC’s visual identity has a long run of named designers. English Wikipedia says the original logo, used from 1940 to 1958, was designed by Hortense Binette, a student at the École des Beaux-Arts, and showed a map of Canada with a thunderbolt to stand for broadcasting. From 1940 to 1949 the map also included Newfoundland. In 1958 the CBC adopted a new mark for the end of network programmes, designed by the scale-model artist Jean-Paul Boileau: the words “CBC” and “Radio-Canada” laid over a map of Canada, with “Radio-Canada” placed on top for French programming.

Colour television brought the next mark. English Wikipedia says Hubert Tison designed the “Butterfly” logo in 1966 to mark the move from black-and-white to colour, in the manner of the NBC peacock. It ran at the start of programmes broadcast in colour and stayed in use until all CBC television programmes had switched. BP&O, in a Logo Histories article by Richard Baird dated 10 October 2024, gives the same purpose for the butterfly and names Tison as its designer.

Burton Kramer’s gem in 1974, simplified in 1986 and redrawn in 1992.

The 1974 CBC mark came out of a competition. BP&O reported on 10 October 2024 that in 1974 the broadcaster sought a new logo and corporate identity, and set out what the mark had to do: represent all aspects of broadcasting, act as a strong visual target that would attract and hold viewers’ attention, be capable of animation for on-air use, and adapt to every reproduction method, from screen printing and embossing to single and full colour. The competition was won by the Canadian designer Burton Kramer.

The idea rests on one letter. BP&O said Kramer’s logo had at its heart the initial C for Canada, which expands in every direction, east, west, north and south, and that the overall shape suggested the corporation’s international role as well as its national one. The symbol was weighted at the centre and lightened towards the edge. In its full-colour version it was red at the centre, radiating outward through dark orange, light orange and yellow, and wherever possible it sat on a dark blue background or inside a blue circle. It could also appear in red on white, as on the corporate stationery, or in white on a colour, and it was paired with Helvetica Medium to name the divisions in English and French.

The archive Canada Modern, in its trademark entry for the 1974 logo, credits Burton Kramer & Associates and quotes Kramer describing the brief: a bilingual logo that would work for Radio Canada and Radio Canada International, together with a comprehensive graphic standard for the corporation’s visual needs. Kramer, quoted there, described the logo as visually broadcasting outward to the country and the world, and as already animated by its graphic nature. The same entry says the official name of the symbol is “the gem”.

On air the gem became known by another name. BP&O said the main on-air identification showed the logo morphing kaleidoscopically into its form while radiating out from the centre of the screen on a blue background, and that the symbol, known internally as the gem, later became known colloquially as “The Exploding Pizza”. English Wikipedia says the animated version went to air in December 1974 and marked the arrival of a full-colour network television service, and that the opening fanfare carried the voiceover “This is CBC” or “Ici Radio-Canada”.

The gem was then adjusted twice. English Wikipedia says a one-colour version created by Hubert Tison and Robert Innes was introduced on 1 January 1986, generally dark blue on white or white on dark blue, along with computer-generated idents whose background colours changed with the time of day behind a translucent gem. BP&O said the 1986 work aimed to rejuvenate and simplify the emblem and to standardise its use. In 1992, English Wikipedia says, the logo was redesigned by the Swiss-Canadian firm Gottschalk + Ash: the segments were reduced, the C at the centre became a simple red circle, and new computer-generated idents followed in November 1992. BP&O described the same change, saying it was meant to improve the logo at small sizes and that red returned to it.

A letter, a radiating shape and a blue ground.

A broadcaster’s mark has to work on a screen for a few seconds at a time, and it is often redrawn while its core stays put. German Wikipedia says the German shared channel Das Erste took a “1” as its logo with a new corporate design on 1 October 1984, gave it a ring in 2003, and from 28 February 2015 cut it out of a white circle. Horizont reported on 27 November 2008 that a revised on-air design for the channel kept its logo, colours and typography and changed the animated backgrounds around them, with new identity spots showing people in different landscapes and regions.

The initials can also hold steady while the words behind them change. The Irish Times reported on 20 July 2009 that RTÉ’s full name was respelled Raidió Teilifís Éireann, and quoted an RTÉ spokeswoman saying that all on-air logos read simply RTÉ. Idents can change with a channel’s name: Promax Daily Brief reported on 19 September 2014 that RTÉ Two returned to the name RTÉ2 with idents built from footage of young people in Ireland. When reading a broadcaster’s identity, look at which mark has stayed fixed, how long it has lasted, and what the idents and backgrounds around it have been asked to do.

Two languages, one symbol, and a centre that changed shape.

The CBC’s logos follow the technology of their time. Hortense Binette’s 1940 mark combined a map with a thunderbolt for radio; Jean-Paul Boileau’s 1958 design laid both names over the map for the end of network programmes; Hubert Tison’s 1966 butterfly announced colour; and Burton Kramer’s 1974 gem, as BP&O described it, was written into its brief as something that could be animated on air. Each change is dated, and each has a named designer in the sources.

The bilingual requirement shaped the work. Kramer, quoted by Canada Modern, said the brief called for a logo that would work equally well for Radio Canada and Radio Canada International. The 1958 mark had handled the two languages by swapping which name sat on top; the 1974 gem avoided words in the symbol and left the division names to Helvetica Medium in English and French, according to BP&O.

The later changes kept the radiating shape while altering its centre and its colour. In 1986 the gem became one colour, dark blue or white, with idents that changed background colour through the day, English Wikipedia says. In 1992 the central C became a red circle, and English Wikipedia says the mark has since appeared in white, and sometimes red, on textured or coloured backgrounds from the early 2000s. BP&O recorded that Kramer criticised the 1992 version, saying it did not refer specifically to Canada.

That debate points to the central design question in the CBC’s identity: what the centre of the mark stands for. Kramer put a letter there, the C for Canada, and surrounded it with segments that read as a signal moving outward. The 1992 redrawing replaced the letter with a circle and returned red to the symbol, keeping the radiating ring that viewers had seen animated on blue since December 1974.

For a design guide, CBC shows how a public broadcaster can keep one radiating symbol across decades of on-air use while redrawing its centre and its colour, and how a bilingual service can let a wordless mark speak for both languages. Compare the BBC, the British public broadcaster, or NPR, the American public radio network. For this guide we use orange, red and blue with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep CBC’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.