The V&A let sundial shadows set the type for its Friday Late relaunch

Create a flexible identity for the V&A's Friday Late events that cements the museum as the originator of the UK late programme, shows the diversity of what the series covers, appeals to new demographics and works across print and digital.

Derive the whole identity from the sundial: type stretches and shifts like shadows as light moves, so the event's time of day literally redraws the brand.

Invited to pitch in January 2019, Paq skewed and slanted the museum's own V&A Sans into elongated letterforms informed by sundial shadows, ran yellow type against dark, nighttime imagery, and drew poster backdrops from its own apparel shoot. The logo shape-shifts across applications, and the identity debuted with the Bauhaus-centenary Friday Late on 26 April 2019.

The identity launched with the 26 April 2019 Bauhaus-themed event marking the series' 20th anniversary. The source reports no audience figures.

The V&A's Friday Late series was 20 years old, and the museum briefed designers to cement its place as the originators of the late programme in the UK while showing the diversity of what the events cover. Creative director Chiamaka Ojechi of London studio Paq said the goal was also to appeal to different demographics and stand out from other Friday lates such as Tate's and the Royal Academy's.

Paq's concept treats time as 'arguably our most precious commodity'. Joshua Allen said the team looked back at how time was told historically, landing on the sundial and how its shadows transform in size and shape as time passes, then used those same principles to drive the design: elongated typography that references the event's evening slot.

The palette evokes night, with yellow text against dark imagery, and the 'bold contrast' between type and photography was tuned to highlight the life, spirit and fun of the series. The V&A required its house typeface V&A Sans (an adapted TheSans by Lucas de Groot) and prominence for the museum logo, but gave Paq room to skew and slant the type playfully, and the logo shape-shifts across print and digital — 'bringing the sundial into the present day'.

The identity launched to mark the anniversary and coincide with the 26 April 2019 Bauhaus-themed late, which fell exactly 100 years after the school's founding and asked whether the art school can still be radical amid rising fees and funding cuts. Poster photography came from Paq's own 'primary paq' apparel shoot for its art-school fit.

The sundial is a concept with a built-in engine: shadows keep moving, so the system keeps generating variations.

Working inside the museum's own typeface kept the identity unmistakably V&A while the slant made it disruptive.

Flexibility across print and digital matched a series whose content changes every month.

Build an identity from the one thing only your event owns — here, its hour of the week — and every application restates the concept instead of decorating it.

The source reports no follow-up figures; Paq's founders were guest lecturers at Ravensbourne with prior arts clients including Tate Modern.