It was named the Canard because of the resemblance of its forward fuselage to that of a duck's long neck while in flight.

The Canard was, even by the standards of 1910, a curiously regressive design,[2] its layout reminiscent of Alberto Santos-Dumont's 14-bis of 1906.

As first flown at Issy-les-Moulineaux by Maurice Colliex, the aircraft had an uncovered fuselage of wire-braced wood construction with the 50 hp (37 kW) Rossel-Peugeot[3] rotary engine at the rear and the front-mounted control surfaces consisting of an all-moving elevator divided into two halves, one either side of the fuselage, a rectangular balanced rudder mounted above the elevator, and a pair of short-span fixed horizontal surfaces with a high angle of attack mounted behind and below the elevators.

Voisin's characteristic side-curtains were fitted to the outermost pair of interplane struts and roll control was achieved using trailing-edge ailerons on both upper and lower wings.

The seaplane variant, fitted with floats designed by Henri Fabre,[6] was initially built to the order of Prince Bibesco, who intended to use it make a flight across the Black Sea.