Creator of Canucks logo returns to his hockey roots
TOM HAWTHORN
Victoria — Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Sunday, Jul. 03 2011, 8:07 PM EDT
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The commission to create a Royals logo for the team's upcoming debut season marked a rare return to the graphic arts for Mr. Lynch. The 57-year-old artist is more of a painter these days, having moved to Nanoose Bay on Vancouver Island three years ago.
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Before dedicating himself to painting, Mr. Lynch had a long career as a graphic designer. Among his clients was a certain hockey team for which he developed an image that was ubiquitous last month.
The breaching orca representing the Vancouver Canucks? That's the work of Mr. Lynch's fertile mind.
Logos, he said, are "the ultimate popular art."
The Canucks logo was released 14 years ago, after the team's original stick-in-rink design (now used as a pleasing shoulder flash) and the uninspiring downward skate. In beating out four competitors, Mr. Lynch settled on the orca, a creature that was "top of the food chain, dominant and unique to the West Coast."
The letter C from which it breaches was selected to give the Canucks' sweater a classic look, as if it was an Original Six team.
The artist also prepared a lumberjack image of a bearded Johnny Canuck character, but the owners at the time did not care for it.
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He has designed album covers and advertising campaigns, opera broadsides and sporting posters, beer labels and corporate logos.
One of his more familiar non-sports logos is for the Bread Garden, featuring a baker with fresh bread at the end of a long oven peel. In 2003, he redesigned the White Spot logo, dropping the familiar chicken with a fork and spoon for a circular image containing the words "legendary restaurant."
For the Royals, he created an heraldic lion. The beast is rearing on its hind legs and is exposing its tongue. It holds an upside-down hockey stick where tradition might dictate a flagpole.
"I tried to keep it pure and simple," the artist said. "Lions represent good things like strength, courage and loyalty."
Sometimes, Mr. Lynch finds a home even for rejected work.
The Johnny Canuck character he designed for the Canucks ended up as the image for the Vancouver Giants junior hockey team. It features a Paul Bunyan-esque character carrying a hockey stick instead of an ax over his shoulder.
By coincidence, the Giants will travel to Victoria for the Royals' inaugural Western Hockey League game on Sept. 24. All the skaters will be wearing Mr. Lynch's logos.