Ontario Historical Society Logo Redesign, 2018
Rebrand and Logo Design
Logo Design, Branding
Ontario Historical Society was in need of a new logo,, as the old logo was a coat of arms that depicted a stereotypical representation of an indigenous person with a British settler, in Latin “For All” under the settler and “From All” under the indigenous person. The new logo would set the tone and direction for a complete rebrand in the upcoming years. This concept was created to persuade the board of directors of the Ontario Historical Society to consider a logo design and rebrand. The organization requested a modular multi-colour logo, where the brand colours could be used for colour blocking of content on their web pages, social media and print material. Some of the keywords used to describe the Ontario Historical Society’s network and membership: rural & urban history, inclusive, volunteers, umbrella organization, Unifier/Umbrella Organization.
Role: Graphic Designer
Organization: Ontario Historical Society
Technology: Illustrator, Indesign
Concept Development
The Ontario Historical Society is an umbrella organization that represents several historical societies within rural and urban Ontario, it unifies all members and partners under one organization. The chosen concept was a modular design, multiple squares arranged to form the contour of Ontario’s land mass. Each square represents the group of members, partners or societies based in the area. The number of squares was reduced to represent the five regions of Ontario with five designated brand colours. The main colour, space cadet blue is a callback to the preceding brand colour royal blue.
The selected font for the logo was “Fairplex”, a light slab serif designed by Zuzana Licko. The thin straight stroke in the characters and the low contrast stroke weight are complementary to the geometric logomark treatment. The Ontario Historical Society logo has been designed to reproduce at a minimum height of 30 mm. On the web, the minimum size of the logo is 113 pixels deep. There is no maximum reproduction size of the logo. Leave the letters “ON” space on all sides when placing the logo.
