Original Canucks logo designer tells his story

The Vancouver Canucks treated us to a great video today with the story of how the original 1970 logo came about.

Former graphic designer Joe Borovich is interviewed in the three-minute video about his timeless contribution to the franchise.

When I first designed the logo I was a graphic designer. I'm retired now. But at the time I was freelancing on my own. I was a hockey fan all my life and then in 1969 I heard rumors that the Canucks were coming into the NHL.

With that in mind, I decided to take some time and come up with a logo and see if I could submit it.

When you do a logo, they indicate that you should try and bring in the initial of the company and also what they do. I ended up with the initial "C" for Canucks — although a lot of people didn't see it initially — made up of the overall shape of the hockey rink with a stick going through making the "C." And of course the stick is the tool they use so I had three components there.

I worked about a week on this situation. I came up with the stick in the rink and then I applied it to the uniforms. I decided on blue and green and white. Then I took it to the Canucks office.

The Canucks resurrected Borovich's original logo and uniform design for a few nights during the team's 40th anniversary in 2010.

A modernized version of the logo has been in use on the Canucks' uniforms since 2007.

By the way, I have to credit the video producer for acknowledging the club's hilarious variety of visual identities right off the bat, saying: "Canuck fans have have quite a selection of team logos and uniforms to cheer for over the years."

That they have.