When artist Rob Lowe, AKA Supermundane, was selected to design the logo for the 2024 Champions League final in London, he was told he could add one colour to use alongside the normal competition brand palette. So, in a city of red buses, red phone boxes and red-uniformed Beefeaters… he chose green. To give him his due, green is the colour of the Wembley pitch the final will be played on come 1 June, but most importantly it’s the colour he most associates with the city he has called home since 1996. Despite being Europe’s third most populous city, with an ever-changing skyline and new buildings forever shooting up, London remains blessed with open spaces. And, for Lowe, this is what makes it so very special.
“I recently read an article about how London is a forest,” he explains. “Did you know it has almost as many trees as there are people? That’s over eight million trees! I looked at images of the city from space, and they actually have a bit of a green tinge because of all the trees and parks.” Happily, this green tinge is not the domain of private gardens and estates off limits to the public; London remains a city bursting at the seams with verdant spaces open to all. Forty per cent of the UK capital is public green space, making London the greenest city in Europe, and parks and trees crop up throughout Rob’s design in different forms.
“I’ve lived in lots of places across London, but everywhere I’ve lived has had a park or common nearby that I used all the time. Now, my local park is One Tree Hill in south London, and the view from the park of the London skyline, fringed by trees, helped inspire my design. I managed to get the actual park into the design, in my own way. My work is all about context, so a circle is just a circle, but if I put it on top of a line on top of a little mound, it becomes One Tree Hill. There’s a lot of poetic license in the piece!”
Parks are just one aspect of the accessible London spaces that appear in Lowe’s work. Lidos, public open-air swimming pools which proliferated in the 1930s, still have passionate devotees across the capital, including Lowe himself. There are 17 in total, dotted around the city, which are open all year round.
“I included a lido in the design because of my love for Tooting Bec Lido in south London, which is where I go cold-water swimming. The water is usually about two degrees above freezing in the winter – I can only stay in for about two minutes before I’m in so much pain. But honestly, without being over the top about it, it’s changed my life. I’m one of those cold-water swimmer evangelists now.”
Lowe’s love of outdoor exercise doesn’t extend to playing football, but he does enjoy getting up close to the action at his local non-league side. “I go to Dulwich Hamlet every now and then; I love it there,” he says. “I can walk to the ground from where I live. I really enjoy going through Dulwich, meeting friends in the pub with all the pink and blue scarves everywhere. Then you walk a bit further on to go to the game. You can even bring your dog and have a local beer while you watch!”
It is a joy to listen to Rob speak with such passion about London. Like his art, the 52-year-old is fun and full of energy – even on a drab Monday morning in early January. His beard is as bushy as the plant life in the parks he speaks about with such affection.
Where we chat, at the Champions Journal studio in Spitalfields, we are within walking distance of many of the elements in his final design, and Rob is zealous about getting out and exploring the city on foot, something he has got down to a fine art. Only the day before, on one of his frequent inner-city rambles, he had stumbled across the free collection at the National Poetry Library on the South Bank.
“I thought it was maybe just for members, but you can just walk straight in and read some poetry. I have a whole routine on my walks around central London. Yesterday, I went to the cinema in Soho, popped into the Coach & Horses pub – I’m a regular! – and then ended up on the South Bank reading some free poems. The South Bank is the most incredible public space, and anyone at all can access it. I included both the Tate Modern and the Hayward Gallery in the design; they’re two of my favourite galleries there which I visit a lot on my wanderings.”
As well as being an appreciator of public art in London, Rob is also an extensive contributor. “Murals of mine have been installed around the pool at my favourite lido in Tooting Bec, and I’ve also done a
mural on an entire building in Covent Garden, the London Graphic Centre. That’s a pretty big piece, but this Champions League design will be on the largest scale of anything I’ve done. My football-loving nephew keeps saying to me, ‘You have no idea how big this is!’ but I can’t really bring myself to think about that… It will be seen by more people than anything else I’ve done, for sure.
“I loved that challenge for this piece,” he adds. “Distilling down the iconic landmarks and outdoor spaces to their key elements, but still maintaining the key essence of the buildings, the nature and the city.” The design is a wonderful introduction to London’s green and pleasant land. So follow Rob’s example and get out there and enjoy it.
When artist Rob Lowe, AKA Supermundane, was selected to design the logo for the 2024 Champions League final in London, he was told he could add one colour to use alongside the normal competition brand palette. So, in a city of red buses, red phone boxes and red-uniformed Beefeaters… he chose green. To give him his due, green is the colour of the Wembley pitch the final will be played on come 1 June, but most importantly it’s the colour he most associates with the city he has called home since 1996. Despite being Europe’s third most populous city, with an ever-changing skyline and new buildings forever shooting up, London remains blessed with open spaces. And, for Lowe, this is what makes it so very special.
“I recently read an article about how London is a forest,” he explains. “Did you know it has almost as many trees as there are people? That’s over eight million trees! I looked at images of the city from space, and they actually have a bit of a green tinge because of all the trees and parks.” Happily, this green tinge is not the domain of private gardens and estates off limits to the public; London remains a city bursting at the seams with verdant spaces open to all. Forty per cent of the UK capital is public green space, making London the greenest city in Europe, and parks and trees crop up throughout Rob’s design in different forms.
“I’ve lived in lots of places across London, but everywhere I’ve lived has had a park or common nearby that I used all the time. Now, my local park is One Tree Hill in south London, and the view from the park of the London skyline, fringed by trees, helped inspire my design. I managed to get the actual park into the design, in my own way. My work is all about context, so a circle is just a circle, but if I put it on top of a line on top of a little mound, it becomes One Tree Hill. There’s a lot of poetic license in the piece!”
Parks are just one aspect of the accessible London spaces that appear in Lowe’s work. Lidos, public open-air swimming pools which proliferated in the 1930s, still have passionate devotees across the capital, including Lowe himself. There are 17 in total, dotted around the city, which are open all year round.
“I included a lido in the design because of my love for Tooting Bec Lido in south London, which is where I go cold-water swimming. The water is usually about two degrees above freezing in the winter – I can only stay in for about two minutes before I’m in so much pain. But honestly, without being over the top about it, it’s changed my life. I’m one of those cold-water swimmer evangelists now.”
Lowe’s love of outdoor exercise doesn’t extend to playing football, but he does enjoy getting up close to the action at his local non-league side. “I go to Dulwich Hamlet every now and then; I love it there,” he says. “I can walk to the ground from where I live. I really enjoy going through Dulwich, meeting friends in the pub with all the pink and blue scarves everywhere. Then you walk a bit further on to go to the game. You can even bring your dog and have a local beer while you watch!”
It is a joy to listen to Rob speak with such passion about London. Like his art, the 52-year-old is fun and full of energy – even on a drab Monday morning in early January. His beard is as bushy as the plant life in the parks he speaks about with such affection.
Where we chat, at the Champions Journal studio in Spitalfields, we are within walking distance of many of the elements in his final design, and Rob is zealous about getting out and exploring the city on foot, something he has got down to a fine art. Only the day before, on one of his frequent inner-city rambles, he had stumbled across the free collection at the National Poetry Library on the South Bank.
“I thought it was maybe just for members, but you can just walk straight in and read some poetry. I have a whole routine on my walks around central London. Yesterday, I went to the cinema in Soho, popped into the Coach & Horses pub – I’m a regular! – and then ended up on the South Bank reading some free poems. The South Bank is the most incredible public space, and anyone at all can access it. I included both the Tate Modern and the Hayward Gallery in the design; they’re two of my favourite galleries there which I visit a lot on my wanderings.”
As well as being an appreciator of public art in London, Rob is also an extensive contributor. “Murals of mine have been installed around the pool at my favourite lido in Tooting Bec, and I’ve also done a
mural on an entire building in Covent Garden, the London Graphic Centre. That’s a pretty big piece, but this Champions League design will be on the largest scale of anything I’ve done. My football-loving nephew keeps saying to me, ‘You have no idea how big this is!’ but I can’t really bring myself to think about that… It will be seen by more people than anything else I’ve done, for sure.
“I loved that challenge for this piece,” he adds. “Distilling down the iconic landmarks and outdoor spaces to their key elements, but still maintaining the key essence of the buildings, the nature and the city.” The design is a wonderful introduction to London’s green and pleasant land. So follow Rob’s example and get out there and enjoy it.
When artist Rob Lowe, AKA Supermundane, was selected to design the logo for the 2024 Champions League final in London, he was told he could add one colour to use alongside the normal competition brand palette. So, in a city of red buses, red phone boxes and red-uniformed Beefeaters… he chose green. To give him his due, green is the colour of the Wembley pitch the final will be played on come 1 June, but most importantly it’s the colour he most associates with the city he has called home since 1996. Despite being Europe’s third most populous city, with an ever-changing skyline and new buildings forever shooting up, London remains blessed with open spaces. And, for Lowe, this is what makes it so very special.
“I recently read an article about how London is a forest,” he explains. “Did you know it has almost as many trees as there are people? That’s over eight million trees! I looked at images of the city from space, and they actually have a bit of a green tinge because of all the trees and parks.” Happily, this green tinge is not the domain of private gardens and estates off limits to the public; London remains a city bursting at the seams with verdant spaces open to all. Forty per cent of the UK capital is public green space, making London the greenest city in Europe, and parks and trees crop up throughout Rob’s design in different forms.
“I’ve lived in lots of places across London, but everywhere I’ve lived has had a park or common nearby that I used all the time. Now, my local park is One Tree Hill in south London, and the view from the park of the London skyline, fringed by trees, helped inspire my design. I managed to get the actual park into the design, in my own way. My work is all about context, so a circle is just a circle, but if I put it on top of a line on top of a little mound, it becomes One Tree Hill. There’s a lot of poetic license in the piece!”
Parks are just one aspect of the accessible London spaces that appear in Lowe’s work. Lidos, public open-air swimming pools which proliferated in the 1930s, still have passionate devotees across the capital, including Lowe himself. There are 17 in total, dotted around the city, which are open all year round.
“I included a lido in the design because of my love for Tooting Bec Lido in south London, which is where I go cold-water swimming. The water is usually about two degrees above freezing in the winter – I can only stay in for about two minutes before I’m in so much pain. But honestly, without being over the top about it, it’s changed my life. I’m one of those cold-water swimmer evangelists now.”
Lowe’s love of outdoor exercise doesn’t extend to playing football, but he does enjoy getting up close to the action at his local non-league side. “I go to Dulwich Hamlet every now and then; I love it there,” he says. “I can walk to the ground from where I live. I really enjoy going through Dulwich, meeting friends in the pub with all the pink and blue scarves everywhere. Then you walk a bit further on to go to the game. You can even bring your dog and have a local beer while you watch!”
It is a joy to listen to Rob speak with such passion about London. Like his art, the 52-year-old is fun and full of energy – even on a drab Monday morning in early January. His beard is as bushy as the plant life in the parks he speaks about with such affection.
Where we chat, at the Champions Journal studio in Spitalfields, we are within walking distance of many of the elements in his final design, and Rob is zealous about getting out and exploring the city on foot, something he has got down to a fine art. Only the day before, on one of his frequent inner-city rambles, he had stumbled across the free collection at the National Poetry Library on the South Bank.
“I thought it was maybe just for members, but you can just walk straight in and read some poetry. I have a whole routine on my walks around central London. Yesterday, I went to the cinema in Soho, popped into the Coach & Horses pub – I’m a regular! – and then ended up on the South Bank reading some free poems. The South Bank is the most incredible public space, and anyone at all can access it. I included both the Tate Modern and the Hayward Gallery in the design; they’re two of my favourite galleries there which I visit a lot on my wanderings.”
As well as being an appreciator of public art in London, Rob is also an extensive contributor. “Murals of mine have been installed around the pool at my favourite lido in Tooting Bec, and I’ve also done a
mural on an entire building in Covent Garden, the London Graphic Centre. That’s a pretty big piece, but this Champions League design will be on the largest scale of anything I’ve done. My football-loving nephew keeps saying to me, ‘You have no idea how big this is!’ but I can’t really bring myself to think about that… It will be seen by more people than anything else I’ve done, for sure.
“I loved that challenge for this piece,” he adds. “Distilling down the iconic landmarks and outdoor spaces to their key elements, but still maintaining the key essence of the buildings, the nature and the city.” The design is a wonderful introduction to London’s green and pleasant land. So follow Rob’s example and get out there and enjoy it.
