Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

"CBC" redirects here. This is about the Canadian public broadcaster. For other uses, see CBC (disambiguation).

This page only shows primary logo variants. For other related logos and images, see: Other

1940–1958	1958–1974	1966–1974	1974–1985	1986–1992	1992–present

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (in French: Société Radio-Canada) branded as CBC/Radio-Canada is Canadian public broadcaster founded on November 2, 1936, as a radio network, and its television network went on the air on September 6, 1952. The CBC did not use a logo prior to 1940.

1940–1958

Designer:  Hortense Binette

Typography:  Unknown

Launched:  August 29, 1940

The original logo of the CBC, designed by École des Beaux Arts student Hortense Binette and used between 1940 and 1958, featured a map of Canada (and from 1940 to 1949, the Dominion of Newfoundland) and a thunderbolt design used to symbolize broadcasting.

1958–1974

English logo

French logo

Designer:  Jean-Paul Boileau

Typography:  Unknown

Launched:  1958

This logo was also used by Télévision de Radio-Canada during the same time period that it was used by CBC Television.

1966–1974

Designer:  Hubert Tison

Typography:  Unknown

Launched:  September 1966

The "Butterfly" logo was designed for the CBC by Hubert Tison in 1966 to mark the network's progressing transition from black-and-white to colour television, much in the manner of the NBC peacock logo. It was used at the beginning of programs broadcast in colour and was used until all CBC television programs had switched to colour.

1974–1992

1974–1985

Designer:  Burton Kramer

Typography:  Helvetica Neue Roman

Launched:  December 9, 1974

The fourth logo, known internally as "the gem", was designed for the CBC by graphic artist Burton Kramer in December 1974, and it is the most widely recognised symbol of the corporation.

The main on-air identification featured the logo kaleidoscopically morphing into its form while radiating outward from the centre of the screen on a blue background. This animated version, which went to air in December 1974, is also known colloquially as "The Exploding Pizza". This logo was originally accompanied by a three-note jingle performed on a vacuum-tube synthesizer (for the English version used by CBC Television) or by an orchestral woodwind section (for the French version used by Radio-Canada). This was later replaced in the fall of 1975 by the more familiar 11-note synthesized jingle, which was used until December 31, 1985.

1986–1992

Designer:  Hubert Tison Robert Innes

Typography:  Frutiger

Launched:  January 1, 1986

The updated one-colour version of the gem/pizza logo, created by Hubert Tison and Robert Innes, was introduced on January 1, 1986, and it was introduced with a set of computer graphic-generated television idents for CBC.

These idents consisted of different background colours corresponding to the time of the day behind a translucent CBC gem logo, accompanied by different arrangements of the CBC's new, orchestrated five-note jingle. The logo was changed to one colour, generally dark blue on white, or white on dark blue, in 1986. Print ads and most television promos, however, have always used a single-colour version of this logo since 1974.

1992–present

Designer:  Gottschalk+Ash

Typography:  Frutiger Gotham New Rubrik

Launched:  November 1992

In November 1992, CBC updated its logo design to make it simpler and more red (or white on a red background). The new logo design, created by Swiss-Canadian design firm Gottschalk+Ash, reduces the number of geometric sections in the logo to 13 instead of the previous logo's 25, and the "C" in the centre of the logo became a simple red circle. It is now CBC's longest-used logo, surpassing the original incarnation of the Gem logo and the CBC's 1940 logo.

External links

• Official website

◄ Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation