Jean-François Légaré
Jean-Francois Legare is an editorial director, journalist and content creator based in Montreal, Canada.
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CN // 100th anniversary commemorative book

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of Canadian National Railway, we embarked on creating a milestone commemorative book. Condensing a century of dense history into a few hundred pages while engaging readers proved challenging. CN’s archives contained a wealth of interviews, photos and technical documents, necessitating a robust editorial and graphic approach for gathering and organizing the material. We meticulously sifted through countless pages and conducted interviews with numerous experts and CN employees to craft a book that presents the railway’s story and North America’s 20th century from the perspective of railroaders.

Each page was uniquely treated, drawing inspiration from its content. The book’s layout followed a grid inspired by the shape and proportions of CN’s intermodal containers, while the visual language incorporated industry-specific graphic codes. Ultimately, we printed, bound, and distributed 40,000 copies to CN employees and retirees during the 2019 holiday season.

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