Our Logo - Blackhurst Cultural Centre

A NEW NAME

In 2022, we changed our name at A Different Booklist Cultural Centre to The Blackhurst Cultural Centre, a nod to the centre’s location and a representation of the programs we run that celebrate our rich African and Caribbean Canadian legacy.

With a new name came the need for a new logo, and with our centre rooted in community, we knew exactly how to get it.

THE LOGO PROJECT

In June of 2022, Blackhurst launched The Logo Project, a 18-month long community engagement initiative to give the people closest to the centre a chance to make their permanent mark on legacy.

We invited students, painters, visual artists, and more from the African and Caribbean Canadian community to submit their unique ideas for a chance to represent the cultural centre.

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John Doe

THE PROCESS

After multiple rounds of reviewing the submissions with our esteemed design panel, the top logos were voted on online by hundreds of members in the community.

Kanna Anigbogu, a Toronto-based Nigerian artist was selected as the winner for his beautiful and meaningful submission.

The logo was revealed at an unveiling ceremony where we were joined by artists, the design panel, Blackhurst board members and representatives from our corporate sponsor, RBC.

THE CHALLENGE

The centre now had a new, beautiful logo, but we quickly ran into an issue. We faced the challenge that the beauty of Kanna’s intricate design did not translate well across all the mediums that we needed it to.

We needed a way to ensure the logo could meet the technical requirements that exist in order for it to properly work on signage, merchandise, and across digital platforms, while still honouring Kanna’s design.

THE SOLUTION

With a great challenge at hand, we decided to lean on a fundamental principle of our centre, collaboration.

We followed up with one of the other Logo Project artists, Shelton Deverell, who had submitted a design that had a component in it which we thought could be the solution to our challenge.

OFFICIAL NEW LOGO

Working with Kanna, Shelton and Mark Stoddart from the design panel, a logo was created that perfectly fused the artwork by both artists and the community’s opinion and also met the necessary technical requirements at hand.

What started as a challenge resulted in a beautiful creation and testament to the centre and its people’s values of community and collaboration:

A bold B sits comfortably as a center point within a white circle surrounded by the boundary of woven threads.

The boundary represents the idea of Black Identity being woven together by the cultural centre.

The final logo says: whoever you are as a black person in Canada, there is more than enough space here for you by communicating themes of “Black Identity”, “community hub”, “intersection”, and “interwoven”.

The desire to give a voice and platform to young black artists and showcase their talents was at the core of the Logo Project. With our final logo, we are thrilled to be able to showcase multiple talented artists from the community and to have encouraged collaboration to create something beautiful as a lasting mark on Blackhurst and on legacy.

On behalf of the Blackhurst Cultural Centre, we would like to thank everyone involved in this logo initiative: The artists that submitted original work, the community who voted for their favourite designs, our design panel who donated their time and expertise and our corporate sponsor, RBC, who supported us along the way. Thank you!

John Doe