London Design Festival was launched by Sir John Sorrell CBE and Ben Evans CBE in 2003. Building on London’s existing design activity, their concept was to create an annual event that would promote the city’s creativity, drawing in the country’s greatest thinkers, practitioners, retailers and educators to a deliver an unmissable celebration of design. The launch of the first Festival took place at Bloomberg on 25 March 2003, with a huge show of support from design, education, government and London organisations. 18 years later, this vision remains ever strong.
Since 2007, world-renowned creative agency Pentagram, have produced an annual graphic identity for each iteration of the Festival – responding to, and anticipating, trends in design and typology. While the Festival’s colour theme of white on red has been consistent, Pentagram have adapted each brief to produce distinctive visual identities to ensure that each edition of the Festival is unique. Domenic Lippa, Partner, Pentagram, has led the creative direction of the branding and visual design for the Festival since the very beginning.