Team

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  Paul Harpin

  Paul Harpin is a creative director, brand builder, design consultant, editorial designer for books and magazines, and type designer. He has created many new brands, as well as being responsible for the design of over three hundred magazines and websites, and recently he has designed many new typefaces.

  After gaining a first class BA (Hons) degree in Graphic Design, he joined design consultants Walker Pinfold Associates in 1979. He moved to Banks and Miles design consultants in 1982. B&M worked for many clients including the Post Office, British Telecom, British Airports Authority, London Zoo and the Consumers’ Association.

  After leaving Banks & Miles, he worked for the Architectural Press. He has won two Magazine Of The Year Awards: one for Architects' Journal; and another for BUSINESS magazine with Condé Nast (in a joint venture with the Financial Times). At the same time he designed the Chartered Society for Designer’s magazine DESIGNER.

  At the age of thirty he became group art director at Centaur Media Group in charge of nineteen brands including Creative Review and Design Week, then creative director at Redwood Media Group in 1990 working for the BBC and created content for many blue chip clients including American Express and M&S.

  In 1995 he was a founding partner in The Magazine Consultancy, and the creative director of Times Magazines in Singapore in 1996. He also worked as a consultant to Gaya Favorit Press in Indonesia. He returned to the UK to be creative Director for Lord Heseltine’s Haymarket Media Group for nineteen years. At Haymarket, he was responsible for the look and content of 138 brands, and he led a team of 65 designers as their worldwide creative director, for all their divisions: Consumer, Customer (Network) and Business, Through their agency Haymarket Network he designed the main programmes and the opening and closing ceremony programmes for London 2012, the Olympic games, they rebranded The British Army, and produced extensive content across all channels for many clients including SkyTV, Toyota, Jaguar, FA, Manchester United VW and the Design Council. He recently updated the design of THENFORD, a celebratory book about Hezza's amazing garden and arboretum.

  He now works as a design consultant. He launched the London Type Foundry with Paul Hickson and Joe Graham in 2017. He remains a consultant designer for Haymarket and Vita Vitae in Singapore, and he helps IntoOpera, Extraordinary Editions and Marble Hill publishing and many other new businesses with whatever they throw his way.

  He was the 2021 chair for the Wynkyn de Worde Society, (De Worde was Caxton’s apprentice, the first printer on Fleet Street London). The Society’s members are eminent publishers, designers, editors and printers). Paul was their honorary designer in 2018 and 2019, and was vice chair in 2021. In 2024 he joined the committee of the prestigious Double Crown Club in their 100th year. He drinks and eats with Grotesque No.9 (a gaggle of like-minded type designers) and the BBC (Blackheath, beer and curry club).

  Paul is married to Clare White, and they have three sons. They all work in the creative industries. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, was the founding chair for the Editorial Design Organisation. He enjoys illustration and printmaking. He is a Charlton Athletic football fan. Paul is very proud to have raised over £150,000 for two cancer charities — with his buyfontssavelives campaign, that he launched after the death of his niece Laura.

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  Paul Hickson

  Paul Hickson splits his time between drawing type and playing in The Eastman Brothers country-blues ragtime trio. He started as a trainee letter cutter and typographic draughtsman at Letraset, after 4 years at Hornsey College of Art.

  A move to Face Photosetting in London’s west end saw immersion in the “sharp end” of artwork origination for the advertising and broadcast industries. Paul later took over the production of original font designs for the Face group where he met his future wife and business partner Pat. Both of them eventually teamed up as joint heads of the font creation department at Quick Brown Fox.

  After the demise of QBF and a short period with Drawing Board in Manchester he and Pat set up their own Lettering and Typographic consultancy, P&P Hickson, working on many corporate projects including Easyjet, Sainsbury’s, Hotels.com and Tesco.

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  Joe Graham

  Joe was born in Bangor, N.Ireland, and moved to Manchester in 1985 to study French & History at Manchester University. After graduating he indulged his passion for music by editing the Recoil fanzine for a couple of years before a baptism of fire and criminally long hours at the GBM Group learning the Macintosh and heading up their print bureau.

  In 1994 Joe moved to London and began a long association with Fontworks, the UK arm of Fontshop, initially as Tech Support Manager. Within 2 years he was head of Special Projects, handling the company’s custom font business and corporate licensing before eventually becoming General Manager.

  After 17 years in one place Joe needed a fresh challenge. In 2011 he left Fontworks to set up his own consultancy Typespec Ltd with a focus on custom font development. The company also assists and collaborates with key small foundry partners such as G-Type, Doves Type, ArtyType and Paul Harpin’s BuyFontsSaveLives initiative which has thus far raised in excess of £150K for cancer charities.

  Joe is pleased he’s not called Paul. He’ll be involved with font production, web development, sales and marketing for London Type.

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