As a part of London Design Festival 2026, Pentagram was asked to create an animation piece to be screened on London’s most iconic big screen. Interrupting the usual broadcast of advertisements, at 7pm on 16 September, the 783.5m2 screen at Piccadilly Circus was lit up with a celebration of London typography.

London is one of the world’s great cities. It can be beautiful, challenging, historic, modern, and sometimes all of those things at once. It continues to surprise us, and every time you turn a corner there’s something different right in front of you. Each borough has its own distinctive character. North, South, East or West, London Life reflects something of everything you might discover.

If you look a little closer, you’ll see that typography runs through the city like a graphic thread. For London Life, The team wanted to use type to capture four distinct personalities of London. Water, through the Thames, which divides and unites north and south. The unique historical character of the idiosyncratic Pearly Kings and Queens, and their generous, community-minded spirit. The joyful abundance of greenery that lifts our hearts, from street trees to the city’s precious parks. And finally, the quirky and often quite bizarre street names that remain a source of endless fascination.

The Pentagram team wanted to present all of this through simple black-and-white animation. It’s not too easy on the eye, or too neutral. It’s certainly not too easy to figure out. But then, that’s the London that we know and love.


Thank you to Piccadilly Lights and Landsec for providing the opportunity, and to the London Pearly Kings and Queens Society for the use of their images.