In 2023 London Design Festival celebrated its 21st anniversary, running for nine days across the capital. Pentagram partner Domenic Lippa has been the festival’s creative director for the past sixteen years and designs a new visual identity each year.
This year’s identity features a dynamic typographic layout with a cinematic feel. Inspired by the drama of the movies and the way that films can stretch our experience, the more acute and extreme angles created by the bold typography reflect the power and breadth of the Festival itself.
As usual, the identity features LDF’s signature red, described by Domenic as “the colour of London”. The stretched type aims to encourage visitors to broaden their perspective on design, and to explore creativity from different angles—not only in the campaign identity but during the Festival as a whole.
In addition to the digital applications, the design team have realised all of LDF’s signage and printed matter—this includes the annual editorial publication ‘Red Book’ and a very covetable red LDF notebook produced by Pith featuring the LDF logo debossed onto the cover.
Domenic Lippa explains: “For LDF 2023, we wanted to create a visual direction that reflected a cinematic approach. I’ve always loved film titles, and this conveys the very expansive nature of films, which I also believe exists with the festival. Something big and deliberately dramatic.
“There’s a fine point when typography becomes extreme and illegible,” he adds. “The scale here is at that sweet spot of the most impact. I’m very proud of this campaign—It’s one of my favourites!”.
