LDF 2018 – British Land Landmark Project ‘Alphabet chairs’ by Kellenberger-White.

LONDON 2018 – In Finsbury Avenue Square, visitors are encouraged to explore, interact, move, and make words with 26 letter-shaped colourful chairs. Known for their playful approach to typography, Kellenberger-White has designed a bespoke typeface for bringing together typography, architecture and gravity.

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“The series is an experiment in construction and colour that tests and connects many things,” say Eva Kellenberger and Sebastian White. “It’s a playground, but also an alphabet; it’s public furniture, but it can talk”. Alphabet chairs was commissioned by British Land, one of the largest property development and investment companies in the United Kingdom. Each chair was made from folded metal slabs you can sit on and play with. All together they create a typographic system.

The Alphabet chairs series is painted in a colour palate formed from industrial paint manufacturer, International Marine Paint. Colourways range from the orange of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge to the Cornflower Blue of the Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge.

The series was informed by research into Bauhaus culture and design starting from the works of painter and professor László Moholy-Nagy, sculptor Marianne Brandt and industrial designer Wilhelm Wagenfeld. An other source of inspiration were the photos in Bruno Munari’s 1944 series Seeking Comfort in an Uncomfortable Chair, which show a figure sitting in a number of unusual positions

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Founded by Eva Kellenberger and Sebastian White, the London-based Kellenberger-White studio develops visual languages that are responsive, playful and process-led. “We have a multidisciplinary approach, and focus on identities, publications, exhibitions, wayfinding and digital platforms”.

British Land Chief Executive, Chris Grigg, said: “Design is integral to everything we do at British Land. Our partnership with London Design Festival celebrates the world’s leading designers and we are delighted to once again support the Festival.”