Abbey Road Studios are the most famous recording studios in the world and a global music icon.

We were commissioned to help with their repositioning strategy and to create a new visual identity – to communicate their vision for the future and to meet the changing needs of music creators on a global scale.

The connection between The Beatles and the Studios was cemented with the Abbey Road album with its iconic cover of the band on the zebra crossing. Rather than ignore the crossings’ black and white stripes, we have re-imagined it to celebrate a new era for Abbey Road.

We identified the need for a new, clear branding hierarchy to allow development of future initiatives, differentiating ‘Abbey Road’ from ‘Abbey Road Studios’:  Abbey Road becomes the parent brand and Abbey Road Studios, the heart and home of the brand, becomes a newly defined sub brand, as does the newly announced Abbey Road Institute, Abbey Road Red and other forthcoming initiatives.

The Abbey Road Studios logo and sub-brands are based around one black stripe moving across a three dimensional plane to form a directional ‘chevron’ which points North West indicating the Studios’ location within London and is suggestive of the distinctive parquet flooring prevalent throughout the recording Studios. As the Abbey Road Studios logo and sub brand logos become more well established, the chevron will develop to be used as a container for other imagery as well as moving image.

The logo is, however, only the tip of the iceberg: It develops into a whole visual language and a series of patterns. We commissioned graphic artist Patrick Thomas to re-interpret and re-imagine the black and white stripes of the zebra crossing together with the new chevron and red sub-brand colour. The resulting patterns create a dynamic visual world that lends itself perfectly to a forthcoming range of consumer facing merchandise as well as all new brand collateral which will be revealed in forthcoming months.

Read design press responses to the rebrand