Arts·Hi, Art

What's behind our shiny new profile pic each month? A different Canadian artist

Every month in 2018, we commissioned a new artist to rejig the CBC Arts logo — and we're keeping the project going this year, too.

Every month in 2018, we commissioned a new artist to rejig the CBC Arts logo — and we're keeping it going

Leah Collins · CBC Arts · Posted: Jan 14, 2019 3:00 PM EST | Last Updated: January 14, 2019

Hello! You're reading the CBC Arts newsletter, and if you like what you see, stick around! Sign up here, and every Sunday we'll send you a fresh email packed with art, culture and a metric truckload of eye candy, hand-picked by our small and mighty team. Here's what we've been talking about this week.

Hi, art lovers!

You follow us on social, right? (You should really follow us on social.) Because all through 2018, we commissioned different Canadian artists to rejig the CBC Arts logo each month — folks including Komi Olaf and Winnie Truong and Ness Lee and Preston Buffalo — and we're keeping the project going this year, too.

(Preston Buffalo/Aurelie Guillaume/Laani Heinar/Ness Lee/Winnie Truong)

Why are we doing this?

We'll let digital associate producer Eleanor Knowles field that one: "This project is really just a super simple way for us to showcase Canadian art and work directly with artists, particularly in instances where they have the opportunity to rep for their communities. It keeps our branding looking fresh and pretty every month, and it just feels nice to look at the icon for CBC Arts and see actual art." :)

Here's where you might come in

Interested in the job? If you are — or you just know someone who'd be perfect for the assignment — this is the time to send us a pitch. It's a paid gig, and your work will appear over our channels along with a Q&A. Every profile pic needs to stay true to our branding, but beyond that, (almost) anything goes. Remember Ekow Nimako's Lego logo? Or this CBC Arts brooch (!!!) by Aurélie Guillaume?

So long as you can deliver a digital image of the final product — one that's easy to understand, even when it's shrunk down to a teensy Facebook icon — we're golden. But maybe you have a few more questions. What needs to be in your pitch?

Introduce yourself. Tell us a little about you and your work.

Show us your skills. Include a link to your website or Instagram — or wherever we can see your art online.

Share your concept. If you have any specific ideas for how you'd dress up the CBC Arts logo, give a short written description of what you'd like to do. (Like, no-more-than-a-paragraph short.) If there's a theme or particular month that you'd like to tackle, let us know.

Whatever you do, keep it simple. Don't worry about writing your tell-all autobiography, and we don't need to see a sketch of your idea, either. (Not yet, anyway!)

Send your pitch to [email protected]. We don't want to miss it, so make this your subject line: "CBC Arts 2019 logo pitch: [insert your name here]." One of our digital producers will be in touch if they're ready to take the convo to the next level.

Take a look at all of 2018's logos!

You've got to see this

Discover the 'Story Behind the Photo' - Starting with Canadian photographers' favourite images, this CBC Arts video series ("Story Behind the Photo") is at its best when it offers a whole new way of seeing the world. Winter, for example, is Soteeoh's favourite time to hit the streets. The snowier and slushier the weather, the better. In this episode, he reveals the origins of this striking picture of Massey Hall.

What if you could see inside a stranger's head? - That picture is a video still from Myrllen: A Portrait, a 2016 piece by artist Catherine Heard. Based in Toronto, Catherine uses medical imaging tools to produce a lot of her work — and to get this image, for example, a layered sculpture was put through a CT scan. The effect leaves the impression that you're looking at someone else's memories flickering inside their mind. (You can watch the video at the link.) Catherine spoke to us about why she makes art about hidden worlds, and how technology both shapes the way we understand things and opens the imagination.

'It's an old Latin term. It means... Nugs' - Nugs? Yes, Nugs. A little more than a decade ago, Toronto's Nick Sianchuk and Kevin Yip started creating this universe of clay characters, and they've been bringing these little dudes to art and craft fairs in the city ever since. We're pretty sure our video producer March Mercanti is the first person to make them cartoon stars, though. Watch the video to catch them in action. (Pingu, eat your heart out.)

Follow this artist

Sitji Chou (@sitjichou) - Sitji Chou can't imagine a world without animation, and we can't imagine Instagram without this Vancouver artist. One of our former Exhibitionists in Residence, Sitji popped up in this week's episode of "Art Minute."

Got questions? Typo catches? Story ideas?

We're just an email away. Send us a note, and we'll do our best to get back to you.

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Until next week!

XOXO, CBC Arts

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Leah Collins

Senior Writer

Since 2015, Leah Collins has been senior writer at CBC Arts, covering Canadian visual art and digital culture in addition to producing CBC Arts’ weekly newsletter (Hi, Art!), which was nominated for a Digital Publishing Award in 2021. A graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University's journalism school (formerly Ryerson), Leah covered music and celebrity for Postmedia before arriving at CBC.