This September the London Design Festival will be eight years old. In what seems like an incredibly short space of time it's grown from around 40 events to the size it is today, hosting around 230 events right across London. Over the next few weeks in the run up to this year's Festival, we're going to remind ourselves of some of the milestones. This was one of them. 26 Letters in 2004 started with a simple request from the British Library.

Sir John Sorrell remembers how it came about: 'The British Library came to us and said they would like to take part in the Festival. One of the motivations was that they wanted to tap into London's creative scene. I think they were wondering why designers didn't go to the library very much and the answer to that was quite simple. Lots of people in the design industry are dyslexic. It's just a fact.'

The Festival responded by pairing the British Library with a writers group 26 that had launched during the first London Design Festival in 2003. 'They took 26 writers who then partnered with 26 designers,' says Sorrell. Working with the International Society of Typographic Designers, the paired writer and designer were then given a letter and asked to create a collaborative work that celebrated, questioned, or in some other way explored that character.  'The results were exhibited in the British Library and it was a fantastic exhibition. It had this wonderful dynamic of a brilliant idea manifested thorugh the work of writers and designers in the best library in the world. So it did everything that one wanted.'

Partnering with high profile spaces in London has become an important part of spreading the word about the city's design talent. Find out about this year's events in Trafalgar Square, the South Bank and the V&A.

Find out what 26 are doing in this year's Festival

Picture: P from by Bryan Edmondson and Robert Williams 2004