Smart, mutable identity by The Beautiful Meme for east London art walk

When I read the words “east London art walk,” I admittedly shuddered, imagining a street art tour led by a well-meaning but slightly enervating trustafarian type, pointing out graffiti and saying “safe” (it means “good,” we’ve heard) too much. However, The Line is a little more nuanced than that, and its brilliant identity by The Beautiful Meme promptly shut up my hippie-hating, street art cynic inner voice.

Taking in sculptures from artists such as Damien Hirst, Martin Creed, Gary Hume and Eduardo Paolozzi, The Line links the O2 in Greenwich, south London and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, near east London’s Hackney Wick. The identity takes the idea of a line rather literally, but applies it in imaginative, smart ways, forming a device as easily applied to stationery as it is to the bark of a tree.

According to the agency, the graphics were inspired by “the idea of journeying through a landscape.” Ben Haworth, The Beautiful Meme creative director, says: “Using the pure vertical and horizontal strokes of the seven characters, our logo is an interpretation of the path of The Line – in the same vein as Beck’s tube map. More importantly though it is designed to feel simultaneously contemporary and primitive.”

For the text, the agency modified the Aktiv Grotesk typeface by Dalton Maag (with permission from Bruno), and text appears across a range of 20 designs in different colourways and patterns. These were printed by Heretic, an east London print studio.

“We wanted the visual language to reflect landscape – external and internal,” says Ben. Tom Sharp, The Beautiful Meme creative director, adds: “For us the images represent the variety of landscape you encounter on The Line and the ever-changing internal experience a walker has. As our tagline says ‘no one journey the same’.”