The biggest challenge for the creative studio on the project, however, was balance: “How do you work with a brand that’s so respected and such a big part of our design history in a way that feels respectful, fit for purpose and also new? We didn’t want to create pastiches,” says Chris Bonds, creative partner at Studio Kit. On the museum side, the team felt the retail experience had become somewhat “disjointed” and was “missing a crucial narrative element” that was such a big part of the Transport Museum’s exhibits.

With a focus on this element of storytelling and TFL’s respected brand heritage, Studio Kit developed a visual system of coloured ‘tiles’ that “brings together the wide range of design elements and visual cues found across the transport network,” says Chris. “The blocky nature of the tiles means the system can be applied to a variety of packaging structures and sizes, allowing us to illustrate the story of each product.” The idea for this patchwork quilt approach came from the tiled interiors and artwork found in stations across London’s transport network. The system’s limited colour palette and use of the Johnston typeface cleverly reference things that can also only be found underground.

Within their coloured square canvases, the studio was able to play with some of those iconic graphics and symbols that the Kit team uncovered during their deep dive into the archives. “The arrows are one of our favourites to work with, largely because of their graphic simplicity. They work well within the tiling system behind the identity, and yet they’re all so diverse and span the entire timeline of London Transport,” says Hattie Evans, designer at Kit Studio. Combined with graphic translations of intricate textile patterns for tube seats, “these two graphics represent a great balance between the simplicity and complexity of the brand, across the design system,” Hattie shares.

One of the key aspects of the Transport Museum for the briefing was its environmental impact. “The project had strong sustainability goals from the start,” says Chris, “which meant that alongside the Kraft project, we removed the packaging windows and use of plastic strapping and instead used cutouts and product illustrations to communicate product features.” The studio found sustainable ways to preserve the museum’s stories through their packaging design and ensured that their imagery was created with growth in mind: “As new products are released, new tiles are created and existing tiles can be sourced from the asset library,” he explains.

Chris concludes: “As a creative team it was a gift to work with such iconic design elements (…) the project was full of education, inspiration and fun. It was an honour to work with a brand that so many people around the world know and love.”