Creative round-up JUNE 2023

June has been a hot month – on the design and branding news front as well as weatherwise! Here’s a selection of happenings from the last few weeks that have caught the eyes of the Ingenious team…

TfL new safety campaign

Created by VCCP and illustrator Andrew Hudson, Transport for London’s new safety campaign has a Pop Art feel and bold type to stand out across the city’s transport network. Focusing on the iconic ‘Mind the gap’ safety phrase, the campaign makes clever use of type and illustration to highlight key risk moments.

Including a vertigo-inducing image of a stairwell with a reminder to ‘Hold the handrail’ and text reading ‘Take care, closing doors’ shown trapped in a tube carriage door, Hudson’s illustrations use familiar shapes and patterns found across the TfL network in an unexpected way to reinforce important messages.

TfL has a long history of effective and dynamic design and this eye-catching campaign is no exception. Look out for it on OOH and digital screens across the network and on social media.

Team GB new identity for Paris 2024 Olympics

Thisaway have developed a new brand strategy and identity for Team GB with an emphasis on the diversity of our athletes and with an intention for the identity to retain relevance beyond the Olympic Games. A new slogan, ‘Everyday Extraordinary’ highlights that our athletes come from all backgrounds. They are also being encouraged to speak publicly about subjects beyond the Olympics such as mental health, wellness and diet to help take the identity ‘beyond sport’.

Motion is used more widely across the identity to make the brand feel active and dynamic. For example, the logo although unchanged has evolved with an ‘exploding, Union Jack-like animation’. A new suite of bold graphic patterns and abstract illustrations convey diversity, agility, precision and speed and the red, white and blue of the existing branding has been retained, but tonal shifts such as deep maroon and a zingy pink have been introduced to differentiate us from other countries with similar team colours such as France and the US. A new typeface, Team GB Sans has also been designed to convey movement.

National Portrait Gallery reopens

June saw the NPG reopen after a £41 million regeneration project which includes a new identity by Edit Brand Studio, a physical transformation by Jamie Fobert Architects, new wayfinding system and gallery rehang and interpretation design by Nissen Richards.

The new NPG monogram is inspired by an original sketch in the archives drawn by the gallery’s first director, Sir George Scharf in 1893. The entrance is now on Ross Place where three windows on the façade have been transformed into doorways with doors created by artist Tracy Emin, featuring 45 low-relief bronze panels representing women through time. The rehang responds to audience feedback calling for a more inclusive and dynamic picture of the people who have contributed to the history of the UK. Portraits of women in the 20th and 21st century galleries have increased from 35 to 48% and works of ethnic minority sitters have also gone up. Original doorways, windows and rooflights have been reopened and restored to provide more light and space and wonderful new vistas.

Although as Nissen Richards director, Pippa Nissen says ‘ultimately the display is all about the portraits’, there is plenty more to see, do and admire in this beautifully refurbished space.

Glastonbury 2023 Shangri-La concept

As everyone knows, Glasto is about much more than the music. Shangri-La is the immersive area of the festival, its concept developed in 2007 by creative director Kaye Dunnings, who heads its planning and building each year. In the early days, the focus was on escapism, but this has evolved to become more political, incorporating elements from the outside world.

This year’s theme, ‘Everything Must Go’ explored money, alternative currencies, exchanges and values. One of the focal installations was a surreal take on a classic high street in the light of the decline of British high streets. It included installations by various artists and a charity shop selling upcycled clothing previously destined for landfill. The Nomad area was dominated by a huge ‘impossible structure’ which uses ‘tensegrity architecture’ where materials are held in place by a balance of tensile and compression forces. The imaginative sets are put together by a combination of professional builders, artists and inexperienced volunteers and each year they are recycled and reworked to look completely different so ‘people never know what to expect’ says Dunnings.

Tastee Tape!

Four chemical and biomolecular engineering students from John Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering found inspiration over lunch for their college’s Design Day competition. One of them, while attempting to eat a disintegrating burrito, came up with an idea to make edible tape to hold wraps together! They then went on to develop Tastee Tape, edible masking tape made from food-grade fibre and organic glue. It has since attracted considerable press attention and the team is now looking for companies to work with them on launching it as a commercial product.

A great idea and evidence that inspiration can strike in the most mundane situation!