Transport for London updates seat textile designs

Transport for London today unveils new textile designs for seating on trains and trams, created by textile design duo Wallace Sewell.


The seat pattern in two colourways, entitled Designs for London, will be applied to trains on the London Overground and the Croydon Tramlink. It will also feature on giftware items to be sold in the London Transport Museum shop.


TfL briefed Wallace Sewell to create two patterns containing just four colours each, based on the visual identities of the Overground and tram lines.


‘We tried to confuse the eye, so that there seems to be more colour in the work, creating designs that seem random through repetition, almost like a flowerbed or landscape effect,’ says Wallace Sewell co-founder Harriet Wallace-Jones.


‘We have always loved the design archives of London’s transport system, such as the original 1930s London Transport moquette designs by Marianne Staub,’ adds her fellow co-founder Emma Sewell


The designs were unveiled this morning at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden, London WC2, and will be applied to trams in September and trains next year.

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  • Richard Holt November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Great to see an article on Design Week about this, the patterns are seemingly banal, but yet thought does go into them and they have a huge audience. Could they be an undiscovered vein of visual culture?

    My graphic designer gene has always been drawn to these patterns, feel free to contribute to the ‘Transport Upholstery Patterns’ Flickr group:

    http://www.flickr.com/groups/transportpatterns/

    …and lament the lost opportunity that is my Metro Masthead suggestion:

    http://www.holster.co.uk/play/metro-masthead

    Personally, during long delays, I like to try and spot the point of repetition in the patterns, sad but true…

    ®

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