For the anniversary year, Pentagram introduced a bright, distinctive violet that complements Arts & Design’s core palette and gives the anniversary a tone of its own.
This simple answering gesture, both celebratory and grounding, affirms Arts & Design’s longstanding promise to place and people.
MTA Arts & Design has been bringing art to New York’s transit system since 1985, through permanent artworks in subway and commuter rail stations, posters, and programs that put music and poetry in front of millions of riders a day. To mark the program’s 40th anniversary, Pentagram partner Giorgia Lupi and her team designed a commemorative identity for a year of celebration across the network, alongside A Data Love Letter to the Subway, a data-driven animation commissioned for all 52 screens at Fulton Center, as part of their programming.
The anniversary logo builds on the existing Arts & Design mark, two circles that join the MTA logo with the program’s name. Pentagram introduced a geometric, monolinear “40” that continues the rhythm of those circles and extends the mark into a single lockup. The zero becomes a third circle that encloses the words “Since 1985” set in Neue Haas Grotesk to match the Arts & Design wordmark, and anchors the right side of the logo so the whole mark reads clearly as a celebration of the anniversary.
For the anniversary year, Pentagram introduced a bright, distinctive violet that complements Arts & Design’s core palette and gives the anniversary a tone of its own. The color balances vibrancy and legibility. In digital applications, it extends into a subtle gradient from deep violet to a brighter lavender.
The campaign line, “Art Everywhere for Everyone,” sums up the program’s mission: art that lives throughout the transit system, free and open to every rider who passes through. The system is built on a two-beat rhythm of call and response, echoed in the paired circles of MTA and Arts & Design, the “4” and “0” of the anniversary numeral, and the line’s two bold words, “Everywhere” and “Everyone.” The motion carries this rhythm through. The line unfolds in two parts, and the logo animates in as the closing beat, its “40” writing on in a single stroke as the zero closes around “Since 1985.” This simple answering gesture, both celebratory and grounding, affirms Arts & Design’s longstanding promise to place and people.
The identity carries across the full year of anniversary programming, which runs through September 2026. It appears on Poetry in Motion placards and art cards in subway cars, on posters, in digital artworks, and across the campaign’s online presence.
