C A N A D I A N N AT I O N A LR A I L W A Y

C A N A D I A N N AT I O N A L

12

543

CN; the railroad from west to eastern Canada

CN throughout North America

The visual evolution of CN

Allan Fleming; the graphic designer behind CN

The Canadian National today

4

1CN; the railroad from west to eastern Canada

5

The turn of the 20th century consisted of the beginning of the World Wars. When soldiers returned home from World War I they were faced with unemploy-ment, strikes and rising prices. Soon after the war, prohibition was established and urbanization was increasing.The economy faced intense changes; the industrial revolution took a huge step in this particular time period including development in transportation, energy, materials, communication, consu-merism and public services. Disregarding the

Depression time period, the 20th century has continually been an upswing for the economy including wheat production in the Prairies, increased demand for pulp and paper, the up and coming hydro electric power, and more importantly oil and gas. Canada in the 1920’s was one of the most dramatic decades be-cause it was post World War I and suffered many problems, introduced prohibition, had The Winnipeg General Strike, and by the mid 20’s gave the economy another chance.

6

7

8

The Canadian National Railway is Canada’s largest railway, both in physical size and re-venue. The CNR was created and controlled by the federal govern-ment between 1918 and 1923 because several railways went bankrupt and public citizens feared loss of key transportation routes. It was both a freight and passenger service until 1978 when it pri-marily became a freight railway. The Canadian National Railways was produced out of both domestic urgency and

wartime. The Canadian National Railways was produced out of both domestic urgency and wartime. It was the only sustainable long-dis-tance land transportation obtainable in Canada for quite some years. It became extremely important to engage in railway creation during war times because of its critical infrastructure and networks. The construc-tion of railways became national because having a viable rail system in the early 20th century was paramount during a time of foreign mili-

tary intervention and civil unrest. The CNR is a merged system and because of this, a positive aspect of the railway was the ability to serve underdeveloped and remote regions of Western Canada, the Maritimes, and northern Ontario and Quebec. It was also disadvan-taged though by being a conglomeration of bankrupt rail systems that were not specifically viable as they seldom had the smallest and indirect routes between industrial and major cities and centres.

9

Not only that, but the CNR was used as an instrument by various governments for economic and social policies which created a subsidy of billions of dollars over the

decades. Now it has changed management and recapitalized to just the CN and is res-ponsible for its financial markets. The CN has been completely refocused as of 1977

once new railways were established for more specific purposes. The creation of the CN Tower in Toronto was owned and built by the CN in the mid 1990’s as a telecommunications

system to accumulate sales to pay off debt. The CN now operates between two countries focusing strictly on a freight railway system based on performance of time and consistency.

10

2CN throughoutNorth America

11

own and operate another railroad even if a foreign government ow-ned that ‘other railroad’. The CN maintains corpo-rate distinction through the Grand Trunk Corpo-ration for legal purposes; however, the company in both the U.S. and Canada operates under the CN. The CN has been ac-knowledged, in terms of productivity, as the most-improved railroad and is becoming increasingly profitable due to the rising popularity of mineral com-modities, shuttle trains and ethanol.

A transcontinental railroad is a network of railway tracks that cross a continental landmass, and can be owned by multiple companies. The CNR is a transcontinen-tal railway between both Canada and the United States. The railway network connected with several U.S. subsidiary lines including the Grand Trunk Western, the Tole-do and Ironton Railroad and the Central Vermont Railway.Foreign govern-ments were not legally allowed to own railways in the U.S., however, a railroad was allowed to

12

Canadian National, Vancouver Canada

13

Canadian National, Chicago USA

14

15

3The visual evolution of CN

18

CN AdCampaigns

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

The evolution of the CN logo.

The CN logo

27

28

29

The logo was still the same logo that had been crea-ted ain the early 1900’s, and the poster were out-da-ted and too illustrative. The company, however, was advancing, paying off debts, and modernising. A new identity and logo was in order ; something that would better represent the positive changes for the CN railway.

30

During this time of change for the Canadian National, James Valkus, a designer from New York was hired to create the new identity for the railway company. Allan Fleming, who was barely 30 years old at the time was then hired by Valkus to create the new CN logo. The new logo had to be modern, simple, and timeless, which it turned out to be as the logo is currently being used today. Fleming said about the logo, «The single thickness stoke is what makes the symbol live,» and he later said. «Anything else would lack the immediacy and vigor». The continuous flowing line symbolized «the move-ment of people, materials, and messages from one point to another,» Fleming said. As the eye moves from «C» to «N», the image suggests fluidity and motion. «It’s a route line that inci-dentally spells CN,» Fleming explained.

31

32

33

34

4Allan Fleming; the graphic designer behind CN

35

Allan Robb Fleming was born in Toronto, Canada in 1929. He studied commercial art and after receiving his diploma he was hired as illustrator for the T. Eaton Company. Not long after that he began working doing layout design at Associates Art Studio and at the same time he worked as the artistic directo rat the advertising agency Aikin McCracken.

After marrying in 1951 Fleming started working at the advertising agen-cy Art & Design Service, where he worked for Ford as well as many other large enterprises. He then moved to England as a freelance designer with his wife where he studied typo-graphy and the concep-tion of letters and books.Fleming returned to Toronto in 1955 where

he began working with Lewis Parker, a free-lance illustrator. During this time he started teaching part time at the Ontario College of Art (now known as OCAD) where he quickly took on the position of the director of typography, a post that he kept until 1961. At the same time he created his own graphic design studio where he worked from home. This proved to be a very successful time career wise for Fleming. In 1957 he became the director and typographic designer at Cooper & Beatty where he worked for art galleries, the Hudson Bay Company, as well as front covers for themagazine Mayfair. He also won a prizeat the Art Directors Club in New York for his inven-tion of a manual typo-graphic design object.

36

During this time the Ca-nadian National Railway was going through a lot of neccessary changes to modernize the com-pany’s identity; and the first step was changing to logo.James Valkus, a de-signer from New York had been hired and put in charge of revamping CN’s visual identity. Allan Fleming, who at the time was barely 30 years old was hired by Valkus to create the new logo for the railway company. The logo had to be modern, simple and timeless ; which it turned out to be since the logo is still being used today, and can be identified by almost every Canadian. The original logo was

CNR (Canadian National Railway), and Fleming decided to take off the R in order to make the new logo bilingual. «The single thickness srtoke is what makes the symbol live,» Fleming later said. «Anything else would lack the immediacy and vigor.»The continuous flowing line symbolized «the movement of people, materials, and mes-sages from one point to another,» Fleming said. As the eye moves from «C» to «N», the image suggests fluidity and motion. «It’s a route line that incidentally spells CN,» Fleming explained. The logo received excel-lent feedback from the general public as well as the design world.

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

Pantone 485

47

48

Other work by Allan Fleming

49

50

After the création of the CN logo, he created another famous logo for Ontario Hydro. In 1962 he became the artistic direc-tor of McLean magazine where he improved and up-dated the magazines visual identity just before joining the advertising company MacLaren Ltd. In 1967 he received a me-dal for his book Canada : One Year of Land. During

this time he was also the director of design at the University of Toronto Press. December 31 1977 Fleming pas away after a long illness at only 48 years old. Allan Fleming will be remem-bered as one of the most important and influential Canadian graphic desi-gners, and also for his importance in the United States as a designer.

51

52

53

54

5The CanadianNational today

22,000employees

55

over

33,800 kmof train tracksthrougout North America

56

18intermodalterminals

57

accessto the

3maritimecoasts

58

59

C a s s a n d r a J e t t e n