The story behind London Design Festival's identity for 2014

Pentagram partner Domenic Lippa tells us what inspired this year's visual identity for the London Design Festival.

Domenic Lippa is challenging visitors at this year’s London Design Festival to lose themselves in design and creativity. Pentagram partner Lippa, for the eighth consecutive year, has designed a striking visual identity and promotional materials for the biggest event on London’s design calendar. 

Lippa’s design takes into account the many exhibitions, talks and workshops spanning a range of design disciplines hosted under the London Design Festival’s umbrella, bringing all these together in one prominent visual motif: a maze.

“London is a huge and unplanned city where even the most experienced visitors can lose their way. This year I am honouring London’s chaotic nature by challenging visitors to ‘Lose yourself in the London Design Festival’”, says Lippa.

The maze graphic departs from Lippa’s previous campaigns, which have included motifs for ‘Design is Everywhere’ where Lippa drew on the words ‘here’, ‘there’ and ‘everywhere’, as well as a campaign making a strong reference to the number ten for the Festival’s tenth anniversary. The 2014 graphic identity invites visitors to explore the festival without an agenda and stumble upon events they may not have attended otherwise.

As with Lippa’s previous visual identities, red and white are the only colours used. The particular shade of red highlights London’s iconic urban imagery, from double-decker buses to telephone boxes to the Central Underground Line.