SCBWI Canada East: Our Visual Identity

The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators is an international organization with chapters in regions around the world. In January 2025, SCBWI “headquarters” revealed their rebrand of the global organization: block letters spelling “SCBWI” in a signature palette, which they arrived at through working with award-winning illustrator John Hendrix. The Canada East chapter then initiated its own regional branding based on the new HQ guidelines, and fielded a team to create a unique chapter identity within the parameters set by HQ.

Through workshopping and discussions, lead by Illustrator Coordinator and brand designer Marie-Laure Couët, the design team developed this guiding concept for our chapter’s brand design:

“SCBWI Canada East is a diverse, inclusive, and supportive community uniting writers, illustrators, translators in the eastern provinces of Canada who are dedicated to the creation of children’s literature, often flavoured with a touch of maple.”

Following brainstorming sessions, facilitated consultations, extensive iteration, and research on cultural and symbolic meaning, the team determined that the maple key would answer this guiding concept. Rather than work within the cliché of the Canadian maple leaf, and in appreciation of the maple key’s associations with childhood, they decided to explore a deeper narrative of the maple seed that is nourished directly by Canada East. Thus, the backstory of the logo is that Canada East is the nurturing soil and the tree that support the development and growth of seeds of creativity.

The line work for both the wordmark (“Canada East”) and the symbol (the maple seed) resembles the hand-drawn efforts of writers, illustrators, and translators across our community. The literal representation of a maple seed, its volume, and its black outline echoes the SCBWI HQ logo to create a unified look that represents Canada East, specifically.

But the story doesn’t end here!

CALLING ALL ILLUSTRATORS

Now that we have our logo and visual language, we are seeking volunteers to take these design parameters and run with them! We need cover images for our Shop Talks and Mingles, as well as our Digging Deeper event series and our Quick Notes newsletter. These images will appear on our website, in event announcements, and in Quick Notes. Would you like to contribute a design? Marie-Laure will assign one of these events to you, and will give you the limited color palette you would need to use and a .png file of the maple seed for integration into your image. If you’d like to participate and receive the details and specs for your specific design, please write to Marie-Laure. And thank you!