Two athletes went to New York and came back with a plan.

The London Marathon began as an import. English Wikipedia says the race was founded in 1981 by Chris Brasher, an Olympic champion who also worked as a journalist, and the athlete John Disley. The prompt was a trip across the Atlantic. Shortly after running the New York City Marathon in November 1979, Wikipedia says, Brasher wrote an article for The Observer describing the New York race as a festival in which thousands of runners from around the world were cheered on by crowds lining the streets. The article asked, in effect, whether London could do the same.

It could, and quickly. Wikipedia says the inaugural London Marathon was held on 29 March 1981, and that the finish line that year was on Constitution Hill, beside Green Park.

The organisation stayed close to its founders. Wikipedia names Hugh Brasher, Chris Brasher’s son, as race director and Nick Bitel as chief executive, working for London Marathon Events, the company that organises the race alongside other mass-participation events. The race has been part of the World Marathon Majors series since 2006. It is normally held in April, but Wikipedia says it moved to October in 2020, 2021 and 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The course has changed little. Wikipedia describes a largely flat route around the River Thames that begins at three separate points around Blackheath, each named by a colour: a red start in the southern part of Greenwich Park, a green start in St John’s Park and a blue start on Shooter’s Hill Road. The three routes converge in Woolwich. From there the runners pass the Old Royal Naval College and the Cutty Sark in Greenwich, run through Deptford, Rotherhithe and Bermondsey, and cross Tower Bridge at about the halfway point. The second half loops through Wapping, the Isle of Dogs and Canary Wharf before heading west along the Embankment towards the London Eye.

Wikipedia says the runners turn into Birdcage Walk for the final stretch, with Big Ben and Buckingham Palace in view, and finish on The Mall alongside St James’s Palace; that last section also formed part of the 2012 Olympic marathon course. The finish took time to settle. In 1982 it moved from Constitution Hill to Westminster Bridge because of construction works, and Wikipedia says it remained there for twelve years before moving to The Mall.

A sponsor in every era, and the same tune on the BBC.

The name has nearly always carried a partner. Wikipedia lists the race’s sponsors in order: Gillette from 1981 to 1983, Mars from 1984 to 1988, ADT from 1989 to 1992, NutraSweet from 1993 to 1995 and Flora from 1996 to 2009. Virgin Money followed from 2010, and Wikipedia says that when the bank renewed its deal in April 2013 the race changed its name to the Virgin Money London Marathon.

The current partner arrived in 2022. Consultancy.uk reported on 27 September 2022 that Tata Consultancy Services had become title sponsor of the race, taking over from Virgin Money in a six-year partnership. It quoted Hugh Brasher with the title “Event Director for the TCS London Marathon,” the form the event name has taken since. Wikipedia says the race has been branded the TCS London Marathon since 2022, and names other companies that use the event for marketing, among them New Balance, Lucozade Sport and the London brewer Fuller’s.

Television gave the race a sound as well as a picture. Wikipedia says the BBC has covered the London Marathon since its inception in 1981 and has broadcast it live and in full since 1984, with rolling coverage through the morning. The theme music used with that coverage, and associated with the event itself, is “Main Titles to The Trap,” written by Ron Goodwin for The Trap, a 1966 film about a Canadian fur trapper starring Oliver Reed and Rita Tushingham. Wikipedia says the recording used is performed by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

Some of the event’s look comes from the people along the road rather than from the organisers. Wikipedia says the amateur runners who make up the bulk of the field commonly run in fancy dress for charity causes. It also says that since 2012 the stretch of Commercial Road near the former Limehouse Town Hall at mile 21 has become a cheer zone, where the running collective Run Dem Crew turns the road into a street party with music and confetti cannons.

Red, a key line and a pattern.

An event that returns every year, or every few years, has to look the same and different at once. Many organisers solve this with a fixed core and a changing edition: a constant symbol sits beside a year, a number or the name of a host city, and that second element is redrawn each time. The lockup becomes a record of where the event has been, and a set of past editions laid side by side reads almost like a timeline. Some events go further and commission an artist to make an official poster or painting for each staging, so that the identity is partly authored by a different hand every time and collected long after the day itself.

Other parts of the identity are carried by people rather than printed matter. A dress code turns the crowd into a visual system, with rules on hats, jackets, colours or hemlines doing the work a style guide does for a typeface, and different areas of a venue often have different rules. Badges, ribbons and tickets that change colour from day to day add a quieter layer of coding. Even timing can act as a signature, when a ceremony or arrival happens at the same hour on every day of the event. For a designer, the lesson is that the logo is only one tool: a calendar, a uniform and a set of repeated gestures can hold an event together as firmly as any mark, and the printed identity often works well when it leaves room for them.

A refresh built around a shared logo.

The current identity dates from a 2021 refresh. Transform magazine reported on 9 April 2021 that London Marathon Events had worked with the Manchester division of the digital agency Dept on a new look for the London Marathon and its website, and that the marathon was the opening phase of a wider project for the organiser and its other events. The magazine described the logo as a collaborative asset, always partnered with that of the lead sponsor. Dept defined a set of rules to place the two marks side by side, with zones separated by a key line and formulas for clear space and scale.

Around the logo, the agency built a graphic language from the route itself. Transform says Dept designed custom geometric patterns to represent the ground the athletes run on, the landmarks they see on the way and the steps they take to the finish, and that the lines in those patterns are set at a precise 26.2-degree angle, matching the distance of the marathon in miles. The magazine reported that the event’s distinctive red remained core to the London Marathon, while a vibrant secondary palette was introduced, to be used sparingly and ideally placed in pairs.

The refresh also covered words. Transform says Dept defined a tone of voice that is community-centric, often uses “we,” encourages its audience to push themselves and stays conversational. In an article published on 8 April 2021 through The Drum’s member network, Dept said the identity also included statement patterns, clear typefaces and a branded photography style, and that it was rolled out on a new London Marathon website, one of eight sites the agency was building for the organiser on the Sitecore platform.

For a design guide, the London Marathon shows how an event can keep a core colour and a route-based pattern while its name and logo carry a sponsor. Compare the New York City Marathon, the race that prompted Brasher and Disley, and the Boston Marathon, another city marathon with a single dominant colour story. For this guide we use marathon red, Thames navy and park green with a grotesque sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep London Marathon’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.