Last week, a story appeared on the Marketing magazine website covering the decision to give brand consultants Saffron the contract to develop a new brand for the GLA family.
Whilst largely a routine announcement, the story did feature the following paragraphs (bolding mine):
It is now understood that the plain sans-serif typeface introduced by Visit London in 2008, and created by Saffron, will roll out to other promotional bodies such as Think London and Film London.
The Greater London Authority (GLA) is also expected to extend the branding to other divisions, such as Transport for London (TfL) and the London Development Agency (LDA).
Unsurprisingly, the bolded statement is one that catches the eye and one that would carry huge repercussions for an organisation where New Johnston holds sway. Thus, rather than posting the story at the time, we’ve spent the last week trying to establish whether there is any substance to it.
As far as we can establish, there is very little.
As far as we have been able to ascertain, the tender (as awarded to Saffron) makes no mention of changes to TfL’s branding.
The press release relating to the tender award also makes no mention of “Brand London” being extended to TfL or its properties.
When we spoke to the Mayor’s office about the story directly, they also denied the validity of Marketing’s story and indicated to us that there is currently no intention to replace Johnston, or the roundel, as TfL’s branding.
TfL themselves have also indicated they have no plans to replace their iconic branding and were happy to go on record on the issue:
The Mayor’s office is seeking to develop a new brand for London which could be extended to the GLA family including TfL. This work is at an early stage but no changes are planned to the London Underground and TfL family of roundels or the New Johnston typeface used on station signage.
This is a position that unofficial sources within the organisation have also confirmed to us, with any contact on the subject between TfL and the Mayor’s office appearing, so far, to be (as the above statement suggests) at a very early stage, and very much related to how any general GLA family branding could be supported, rather than adopted.
The above, therefore, seems to be the current position with regards to the relationship between TfL and the new GLA branding. Obviously if the situation develops any further, we will post more here.
Comments are closed.