At a time when films are increasingly watched on personal screens, the BFI London Film Festival remains a celebration of cinema as a shared experience of cinema. Now in its 70th edition, the festival brings together a wonderfully diverse collection of filmmakers and audiences from around the world, championing the creativity, craft and the shared experience of watching films on the big screen.

Unlike Cannes, Venice or Berlin, which are all much more industry focused, London’s Film Festival has a particularly strong public-facing identity. Cinema lovers can see premieres, discover international filmmakers and attend Q&As with directors and actors in several venues across London.

As the Festival’s organisers, the British Film Institute asked Pentagram to create a new identity for the London Film Festival that would balance the event’s long history with its ambition to remain at the forefront of contemporary cinema. 

The idea for the festival first came about from a conversation at the home of the Sunday Times film critic Dilys Powell, where her guests (which included the then BFI director James Quinn), lamented the lack of a film festival in the capital. Four years later in 1957, Princess Margaret officially opened the newly built National Film Theatre, and the first London Film Festival launched on the following day.

An important part of the new identity was retaining a connection to the festival’s visual heritage, and the new logo was inspired by the illuminated National Film Theatre signage on the BFI Southbank building, originally designed by architect Norman Engleback in 1957. 

At the heart of the campaign is an exploration of the physical processes that are involved in cinematography and the making of cinema through light and projection. Working with projected light rather than relying solely on digital techniques, the team created the LFF letterforms using specially made cut-outs, with coloured light passing through them onto a dark surface. The resulting images were then filmed and photographed, capturing the changing qualities of light, colour and shadow. 

The resulting sequences reveal the letterforms gradually, bringing together the physical craft of filmmaking and the possibilities of digital technology in a campaign that celebrates cinema itself. Musician and film music composer Maxwell Sterling (who previously worked on MUBI’s sonic ident) was commissioned to create the accompanying ident sound.

The logo is joined by the new brand typeface, Haptik by Grilli Type. Originally developed through experiments in tactile reading, its distinctive character shapes give it an unusual visual quality without compromising legibility. A selection of alternative characters adds further personality to short headlines.

Colour also plays an important part in the new identity. Light blue, a colour rarely used by other major events in the sector, is combined with the festival’s familiar deep purple and warm pink. The new palette brings a fresh, contemporary quality to the identity, helping to establish a more celebratory, joyful and accessible visual language.

The result is a distinctive and inviting identity that looks to the future while celebrating the traditions of filmmaking. It captures the energy and excitement of the festival and its commitment to bringing filmmakers and audiences together to experience cinema on the big screen.


Images by Getty Images for BFI, and Millie Turner 
Fatherland Official Trailer, directed by Paweł Pawlikowski (MUBI, 2026)
Fjord Official Trailer, directed by Cristian Mungiu (NEON, 2026)
Naomi Ackie image credit: Nisha Johny and Jonathan Jacobs