Kit Studio’s retail identity for London Transport Museum taps into TFL’s graphic iconography

Tapping into Transport For London’s archives for a visual identity project sounds like any graphic designer’s dream. From the funky seat patterns, iconic ‘this way’ signage, the roundel logo and familiar, quant arrows and pointer hands — there is no shortage of distinctly ‘London’ design classics to draw on.

When the Transport Museum approached Kit Studio for a new retail identity and packaging system, the team began a hands-on exploration into the museum’s archives and displays, “tracing bus maps, and researching iconic landmarks for each tube route” to create a visual identity that would form a new design system for the store and a cohesive, yet individual uniform for each of museum’s wares.

The project’s main challenge for the creative studio though, was balance: “How do you work with a brand that is so well respected and such a big part of our design history in a way that’s respectful, fit for purpose and also feels new? We didn’t want to create a pastiche,” says Chris Bounds, creative partner at Kit Studio. On the Museums’ side, the team felt that the shops retail experience had become somewhat “disjointed” and “lacked a crucial storytelling element” that was so much a part of the Transport Museum’s displays.

Focussing on this element of storytelling and TFL’s respected brand history, Kit Studio developed a visual system of coloured ‘tiles’ that “unifies the broad range of design elements and visual cues taken from the transport network”, says Chris. “The blocky nature of the tiles allows the system to be applied to varying packaging structures and formats to enable us to illustrate the story of each product”. The idea for this patchwork quilt approach came from the tiled interiors and artworks in stations across the London transport network. The system’s limited colour palette and use of the Johnston typeface cleverly nod to things that can only be found underground too.

Inside its coloured square canvases, the studio were able to play with some of those iconic graphic elements and symbols that the Kit team’s deep dive into the archives surfaced. “The arrows are some of our favourites to work with, largely because of their graphic simplicity. They work well across the tile system behind the identity, and yet they are all so diverse and span the entire timeline of London Transport.” says Hattie Evans, designer at Kit Studio. Combined with graphic translations of complex tube seat textile patterns, “these two graphic elements represent a great balance between simplicity and complexity of the brand, across the design system”, Hattie shares.

One of the Transport Museum’s key aspects for the brief was environmental impact.“The project had strong sustainability goals from the outset” says Chris, “meaning alongside the Kraft, we removed packaging windows and the use of plastic ties, instead featuring cutout structures and illustrations of products to communicate product features.” Finding sustainable ways to preserve the museum’s stories through their packaging design, the studio made sure that their visuals were made with growth in mind: “When new products are brought out new tiles are created and existing ones can be sourced from the library of assets”, he explains.

Chris concludes: “As a creative team, it was a gift to work with such iconic design elements [...] the project has been full of education, inspiration and enjoyment. It’s been an honour to work with a brand that so many people across the world know and love.”