A bold new vision for the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon

This year, we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon. A part of why the race has not only endured but thrived is because it has grown and changed with the running community.

We are going to make this year’s marathon something truly special, and that begins with a bold new look.

We’re proud to unveil the new Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon identity. We’ve created a new logo, tagline and standalone social media accounts, which will focus on telling your stories as you prepare for this year’s race weekend. You can find them all right here in the coming days, weeks and months leading up to Oct. 20.

“There is no other sport where the first timer stands amongst the world’s best. They stand as equals on a level playing field.”

We’ve teamed with Origin, the Whistler/Montreal-based agency that specializes in outdoor sports to create a representation of both the marathon’s identity and what it means to bring together thousands of runners to celebrate what we do in Toronto each October.

First of all, we were super excited about this project,” says Isabelle Philippe, the lead designer on the project. “There is no other sport where the first timer stands amongst the world’s best. They stand as equals on a level playing field. We’re going to draw on the essence of the race, the inner fire it sparks in its participants, and the significance it has to Toronto.”

“We resonated with this idea that for those running, this is our city, but it’s the moment that belongs to each and every participant.”

Philippe, along with Origin teammate Lenka Prochazka, focused on a refresh that would be fun, avoid the cliches of many running logos and stand out as representative of the event, the running community and the city.

Celebrating a diverse city and running community

“When you look at it, you see the flow of the “T.O.” lettering,” says race director and founder Alan Brookes. “It represents the flow of how and why people run, of collective movement—how the running community has grown by embracing many different types of people.” Brookes points out that when they moved the course to encompass much of the waterfront in 2000 (and thus taking on its namesake), they knew that the city would evolve down to the lakeshore.

In 2018, the marathon drew runners from 76 countries, and was livestreamed in 146 countries. “I’m not sure if there’s another event in the city that puts Toronto on the world stage to that extent,” says Brookes.

The running community has changed immensely over the past 30 years. The race consciously worked to stay relevant, both to the shifts in what the race experience can be, but also to the community. Our new tagline, “Our Place, Your Moment” and its corresponding hashtag #ItsYourMoment reflects this. “We resonated with this idea that for those running, this is our city, but it’s the moment that belongs to each and every participant,” says the Origin team. “A moment months in the making. A moment shared with 25,000 others on the same path of self-discovery.”

“We are runners which is why this was such a good fit for us at Origin,” says Philippe. “Two of us ran a half-marathon together last fall in Montreal and experienced the joy of training together, running together as colleagues and sharing in the highs and lows of those moments. We also felt really connected to our city in that race. We saw parts of it that we’d only ever driven through, we saw the power of the cheer stations to keep us going when the muscles hurt, we felt the importance of the branding as a pride factor in wearing the T-shirt post race.”