Canon

About the Canon Logo

About Canon

Canon is a Japanese multinational imaging company founded in 1933 as the Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory in Tokyo by Takeshi Mitarai, Goro Yoshida, Saburo Uchida, and Takeo Maeda. The company built Japan’s first 35mm focal-plane-shutter camera prototype in the 1930s and has since become a global leader in cameras, lenses, printers, and optical equipment, known for its emphasis on precision and quality.

Logo Meaning and History

The name Canon comes from Kannon, the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy, reflecting the founders’ ambition to build the world’s finest cameras. The first logo literally pictured the thousand-armed goddess of mercy. While the imagery was soon simplified, the name kept its connotation of a standard or criterion, a fitting word for a company devoted to precision instruments.

Evolution

• 1934: The original Kwanon logo depicted the Buddhist goddess of mercy with her thousand arms and flames, drawn around the word “Kwanon”.
• 1935: The company adopted the name Canon, which was considered more universal, and introduced a new hand-drawn wordmark with the distinctive inward-sweeping C.
• 1953: The logo was redesigned with thicker strokes and a more assertive lettering style so the name stood out more prominently.
• 1956: The current version of the logo was introduced, refining the 1935 design into the bold red wordmark that has remained largely unchanged ever since.

Colors and Font

The Canon logo is defined by Canon Red (#CC0000), the company’s official corporate color, used for the wordmark in almost all brand applications. The lettering is a custom hand-drawn design rather than an off-the-shelf font, with a sweeping initial C and subtly varied stroke widths that give the mark its classic, crafted feel. Canon’s broader communications often use the Gotham typeface, but the logo itself is unique to the brand.

Download the Canon logo for free in vector (SVG) or PNG format.