Carl Wiens illustrates for The Royal Canadian Mint
Commercial illustrator Carl Wiens continues to enjoy a celebrated career spanning over 35 years. Starting out as an art director, Carl quickly moved on to illustration, eventually adding teaching at two post-secondary schools renowned for their illustration programs, Sheridan and OCADU. All while exhibiting his fine art in galleries across the GTA.
Adding to his long-list of achievements, Carl was selected by the Royal Canadian Mint to design a commemorative $2 circulation coin (a Toonie) celebrating the 50th anniversary of Toronto’s CN Tower, Canada’s tallest freestanding structure. The coin design selection process is incredibly competitive, demanding not only a proven ability to create stunning illustration but the strong design sense needed to produce imagery that is striking and readable on an incredibly small surface. Not to mention the technical know-how to meet manufacturing requirements.
Illustrator Carl Wiens at the launch - Hosted by the Royal Canadian Mint and the CN Tower.
Carl’s fascination with the CN Tower began with an 8th grade school trip to visit the then nearly complete tower. Over the years Carl has had the pleasure of being commissioned to illustrate the tower for various editorial projects. Being selected to design the commemorative coin was truly a dream assignment and a genuine career highlight, one that had to be kept confidential for nearly a year! Finally, the day came and the coin was released to the public with a fantastic launch event hosted by the Royal Canadian Mint and The CN Tower.
About the Design:
The coin represents only the second time that glow-in-the-dark ink has been used by the Royal Canadian Mint on a Canadian circulation coin. Exciting stuff! If you look carefully you will see that there are two skylines represented on the coin. The current skyline is depicted in blue while a black skyline represents the skyline at the time of the tower’s construction. The skylines also encircle the coin on the outer ring.
Discover the coin for yourself and read more about it from the Royal Canadian Mint.
Explore some of the alternate designs that were created for the pitch below.
