Glasgow-based O Street works with road painters to rebrand its studio

Glasgow-based design studio O Street recently decided to rebrand themselves in a way that focused on “authenticity, collaboration and getting our hands dirty.” A new logo and brand typeface was needed and the team unusually decided to work with a local roadlining crew to achieve this. 

Roadliners are the unnoticed tradespeople who paint the yellow lines, arrows and type on our streets. As a typographic team that reflected O Streets values, they worked together to make an alphabet, numerals, punctuation and the O Street marque. Molten-thermoplastic and freehand strokes were used to create the thick, tacky lettering that feels bold and recognisable. Applied to the studio’s branding the texture from the tarmac has been kept and the white pops against the yellow, grey and black colour palette. 

Keen to celebrate the craft of roadlining the studio has worked with production company Pretend Lovers to create a lovely short film to accompany its new branding. There’s beautiful and hypnotic shots of the steaming paint being manipulated across the concrete as Thomas ‘Tam’ Lilley, a roadliner, talks about how he got into the trade of roadside typography.