In short
Phil Jones’ career in typography/typesetting and early digital studios, plus how he built design communities through Podge Lunches (design, then digital, then sports).
Guest background
Phil Jones is founder of Podge Lunches; inducted into the Beamer Hall of Fame (2012). He’s been recognized as Creative Pool’s Influencer of the Year and The Drum’s Top 20 Most Influential People in Design. He ran agencies including EHS Brand and worked with Diesel, the Premier League, the FA, Mini launch, Tesco Clubcard, UK Athletics, and Sport England.
Key claims
He didn’t choose design early—he entered printing via typesetting apprenticeship after discovering he was colorblind. He argues opportunities come from adapting to tech shifts (hot metal to phototypesetting to digital) and from community-building. He says Podge Lunches started as a one-off to thank clients during a recession, then became a long-running, invitation-based networking ritual.
Notable examples
APT typesetting company (grew to ~90 staff); Real Time studio (1991) embedding digital services inside client agencies; Canon UK’s first website; Diesel fashion websites after a bomb scare; FA/England bid logo and Premier League’s first website; Podge Lunches’ evolution into Digital Podge and Sports Podge.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOGrowing Up in North Manchester
1:06 to 2:35
Phil discusses his childhood in North Manchester and early influences.
“Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.”
First Encounter with Design
2:35 to 4:33
Phil shares his initial understanding of design as a career.
“That's a really easy one because I didn't, is the honest answer.”
The Journey into Typesetting
4:33 to 6:10
Phil describes how he got into typesetting and the learning process.
“So then they told me there was a vacancy within a printing company, but I had to take the exam.”
Life in the Printing Industry
6:10 to 8:40
Phil recounts his experiences in the printing industry and developing skills.
“And when it came out of the machine, it would come out upside down and back to front.”
Transitioning to London
8:40 to 11:10
Phil explains his move to London and the job opportunities available.
“You had to be, which was the National Graphical Association.”
Developing as a Typographer
11:10 to 13:00
Phil shares his growth as a typographer and key challenges faced.
“And I realised that I was fast, I was clean.”
Kerning and Design Details
13:00 to 14:00
Phil discusses the importance of kerning and its visual effects.
“And that was something that changed, that gave me a lot more opportunities.”
Understanding Type and Rivers
14:00 to 15:01
Learn how spacing and punctuation in typography affect readability and design aesthetics.
“so and if you've got like a word ending with a y which has got a sloping y and you the next thing coming next to it.”
Founding APT: A Design Journey
15:01 to 17:42
Discover the story behind the founding of APT and its focus on design over advertising.
“When I was working with these ad agency typographers, that makes you better at your job because you really like watching for everything.”
Building a Successful Design Business
17:42 to 19:12
Explore how APT grew from a small startup to a leading type company with a significant client base.
“I think there might have even been two Afghan hounds.”
Show all 24 chapters
Transition to Digital: The Next Step
19:12 to 20:26
Learn about the transition from typesetting to digital design and its impact on the industry.
“That was over, what, say 10, 11 years that you were doing?”
Real Time: Innovating Digital Studios
20:26 to 22:46
Understand how Real Time was established and the importance of in-house studios for design agencies.
“And Heather Chambers is one of our directors at APT and studio, really great creative.”
Digital Transformation in Design
22:46 to 26:24
Examine how the transition to digital design occurred and the challenges faced during this shift.
“My thought process on that was actually the opposite.”
Winning Canon's First Website
26:24 to 28:00
Hear the story of how Phil secured the Canon UK website project, marking a significant milestone.
“One of the first digital agencies, I assume, ever in existence.”
Winning the Canon Website Pitch
28:00 to 29:16
Learn about the serendipitous moment that led to winning the Canon UK website project.
“And he said that he'd been given a brief to do a website for Canon.”
The Diesel Connection and Bomb Scare
29:16 to 31:06
Discover the unexpected challenges faced during a meeting with Diesel amidst a bomb scare.
“It's an element of right place, right time, isn't it?”
Building a Reputation with High-Profile Clients
31:06 to 33:35
Hear how landing Diesel and Canon opened doors to prestigious clients and projects.
“We'd been getting a piece of stuff sent to us.”
Creating the Logo for England's World Cup Bid
33:35 to 37:06
Explore the journey of designing the logo for England's bid to host the World Cup.
“I remember pitching him against him for the Premier League, no, for the FA, for the logo for England's bid to host the World Cup.”
The Birth of Podge Lunches
37:06 to 41:44
Learn how the idea of Podge lunches emerged as a way to connect designers.
“Can you explain what podge is for anyone that doesn't know?”
Expanding Podge into Digital and Sports
41:44 to 42:01
Understand the evolution of Podge into digital formats and sports connections.
The Evolution of Podge Events
42:01 to 45:00
Learn about the history and significance of various podge events, including their merging.
“and desire this podge thing, that would work really well for sport.”
Induction into the Digital Hall of Fame
45:01 to 47:20
Hear about Phil's experience being inducted into the Digital Hall of Fame and its meaning.
“Because of my apprenticeship, you couldn't be any more historic.”
Challenges and Insights in the Creative Industry
47:21 to 50:10
Explore the challenges Phil faced working with designers and clients in the creative industry.
“If you think all of my clients were designers throughout the 80s, So I got used to going for a brief.”
Advice for Young Designers
50:11 to 53:41
Phil shares actionable advice for young designers based on his experiences and mentorship.
“Can I ask you a final question of tips for young people starting out today?”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:08Claire:Welcome to My Life in Design, brought to you by the DBA and design-focused PR agency Red Setter. I'm Claire Blythe, co-founder of Red Setter. In this series, I'll be speaking to more people who are shaping the world of design, finding out how they discovered that design was a thing you could base a career around, and how they got to where they are today. This week, I'm here with the lovely Phil Jones, founder of the famous Podge Lunches and a lot more. Phil was inducted into the Beamer Hall of Fame in 2012. He's been named Creative Pool's Influencer of the Year and the Drum's Top 20 Most Influential People in Design.
0:46Claire:He's the ultimate community builder in our industry with his Podge Lunches in the digital design and sports sectors. during his time running agencies like EHS Brand. He's worked with brands such as Diesel, the Premier League, the FA, Launch of the New Mini, Tesco Clubcard, UK Athletics, UK Sport, Sport England, the list goes on. Phil, welcome to the podcast. Hello. Welcome. That's a long list, actually. It's a long list. Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot to discuss. Yeah, I look forward to it. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Can I go back to sort of where it all started, basically that so you're a fellow northerner when you're growing up and was it preston that you're from originally or north manchester north manchester north manchester that's it people say well why did you say north manchester rather than just manchester it's a big difference it was quite a difference yeah yeah i don't ever remember going to south manchester so much like the bus that came to our council state which was called langley estate went as far as Piccadilly.
1:49Wow, okay. You had to get on another bus to go to South Manchester.
1:52Claire:So the thought of going to Altrincham would just never go into your head. Not at all. I played football at Altrincham. Yeah, okay. Years later, I would never go there and just go and visit because they've got nice shops, for instance. Yeah, definitely. So I grew up in a council estate called Langley estate, which I, we was there 22 years. That's myself, my two sisters, Catherine Beryl. Beryl, she's never forgiven my mum called it. I love that name. I remember my mum and dad. And we loved it. It was just normal. It was like what most kids went on councilors days. When did you realise that design, creativity, digital was something that you could possibly get a career out of or make money out of?
2:36That's a really easy one because I didn't, is the honest answer. I didn't know any designers. Of course. The nearest thing to a designer would be a painter and decorator so where i grew up everyone was that a welder performer joiner yeah they'd have those sorts of jobs yeah someone said they were a designer i it would have gone straight up my head yeah what it meant that was and everything like there was about sport and playing football and getting out on the field and running with all the kids yeah so the design Something came very much later and it came through what I ended up doing as a living, which was as a typesetter.
3:18Claire:So how did you get into that? How did you know that was a thing? I didn't. I literally, I went to a school, St. Dominic Savio School, the old Catholic school, and the careers officer came around and was asking people in our class what they wanted to be. And I was looking at policemen. I was actually thinking, oh, it sounds nice. Don't need to go into an office. And I had the book open. Chris, it sounds very, very corny. I had this book open. One page was a policeman. On the other page said printer. And I remember my PO. Yeah, absolutely. Next to each other. I was looking at this policeman thinking, yeah.
4:00When he asked me, I said policeman.
4:03Claire:Yeah. And then for some reason in those minutes, while I was waiting, I remember my dad telling me that the guy who lived behind us was in the print and always had loads of money.
4:18And he could always buy his round. That's what my dad said. He could always buy his round in a book. So when the careers officer said, I said, I quite like the job of the print.
4:29Claire:That's nuts, isn't it? So like one split second change of what you could have done. There'd be no podge. There'd be no like, yeah, amazing. So then they told me there was a vacancy within a printing company, but I had to take the exam. I'd never been good at exams. But this one exam, it was the British Printing Industries Federation. And there were hundreds of people who took it. But it was based on an intelligence test rather than all of the normal things you would do at school test. And somehow I came out quite high. Somehow. I wasn't expecting to. I thought this is where it's all going to go wrong.
5:11But one of the things it did point out is that I was colourblind.
5:14Claire:Oh, interesting. Wow. Not ideal for a printer. Not ideal for a printer. And I suddenly find out age 17 that I'm colourblind, which I'd never known. Yeah. I'm not sure how you would know unless someone tells you. Yeah, how would you? so um they said but it's okay because the company that has got the printing opportunity has also got a typesetting opportunity interesting what a type keyboard what a type caster and it's all black and white and they said you're like you should have no problem with it wow so that's how you got into typesetting yeah let's have it yeah that became a five-year apprenticeship wow five years five years and and i don't think there's such a thing now i think they tend to be i've never two years maybe so it was a five years 1968 to 1973 yeah and that was my five years learning everything to know about type and stripping a caster machine and working with hot lead 700 degrees the lead that was creating the type so you had to think I just warmed my toasty tiki eggs up on it and then years later read about lead poisoning why am I still alive the whole type thing though now even so like when I first started working in design we still had those sort of letter sets out and things but it was still most of it was on Macs because it's sort of like late 90s early 2000 2000s but i still think it's hard to imagine that when you talk about type that not being just written on a keyboard so actually the physical actual iron bits in ink that goes on the yeah it's actually made of lead tin and antimony those are the ingredients and it was in a metal pot yeah it was just around 700 degrees and then a nozzle and then the metal would shoot up through the nozzle and into a matrix that went up all the letters of the alphabet.
7:20Yeah. And when it came out of the machine, it would come out upside down and back to front. So when I was proofreading, I was proofreading it before it went to the readers. So I became proficient in reading upside down.
7:35Claire:Oh my God, you had to proofread it back to front and upside down. I didn't have to because it went into another department which had proofreaders. but I actually quite liked it. You know, as I was coming out, I would read it. And I'd also been looking for things like rivers and information and all the things that, you know, just speak with quite, the only subjects I was good at at school was English. Okay, so that's, yeah. I was quite naturally not bad at that. Every time you get the splash of metal in your hand, because you're up close, bloody hurt. Yeah, I can imagine. Oh my gosh. And the keyboard, when I used to go to the keyboard, There were seven different keyboards on it.
8:16So it was Caps, it was only Caps. You didn't press a shift key and go through Caps. You have Caps, not Gase. It was just massive. And that was my five years. So then I had a trade. At the end of the five years, I actually could leave the apprenticeship and go and work anywhere in the printing industry because I had what they call the indentures. and I was in the Trade Union. You had to be, which was the National Graphical Association. So the world was my oyster and I was 22.
8:51Claire:So what did you do then? Was that when you moved down to London or was that? That's when I moved to London. So how did that come about? How did even the idea of that? Well, that again is quite random. One of the things I really enjoyed doing was writing. And I wrote poems. Did you? Do you still? Lyrics. No, I did. Yeah. And over the five years, the rhythm of these machines that's constant all the time, this rhythm, I would be writing. And I put together a book of song lyrics, and they were in my local library in Middleton Mentors. They were accepted. So I thought, I want to go and be a songwriter.
9:27Claire:That's amazing. That's really cool they got accepted into the library. Oh, yeah, I thought so at the time. You know, this is Phil Jones off Wagley Estate, suddenly got a book in the library. So I came to London to be a songwriter. Wow. Teamed up with a musician whose name was Dave Cook. And we went up and down to Timpanoli talking to famous people of the era, Mickey Mouse and people like that. And a lot of the people I was meeting in London weren't my sort of people. Yes, okay. In the music industry, just suddenly I didn't feel at all comfortable with it. But I met this lovely lady called Babs.
10:09Claire:Aha. And this year we celebrate our 50th wedding. Oh, I love that so much. That's fantastic. So that is the reason that I didn't get on the first train back to Manchester and decided to stay in London. Oh, well done, Babs. Babs is fantastic. Yeah, she is. Yeah, she's brilliant. She told me the only thing I'm good at, by the way, because you've listed all those things that I'm supposed to be good at. she said I'm good at putting the bins out on a Thursday that's a definite skill to have I like it it's a real skill Babs seems that as my only skill always knowing which bins to put out that's hilarious but anyway I still love her of course so you get together with Babs and then you're in London and so did you decide to go back to the printing industry yeah it was the only thing I knew where I could get a job guaranteed because i was in the nga what i took a job in a typesetting company called watkins repro okay and inst john street uh-huh i'm half of where we are now yeah absolutely and realized that in london the monotone caster and the monotone keyboard had two separate trade unions okay and the caster was so get and the keyboard was nga and i could only do one of them unless i switched yeah i chose the keyboard and i became homicide keyboard operator and i was i realized when i was in london that i was good i didn't know that in mcchester because i was in a a company where i was the only person doing that right okay and i had nothing to compare myself with so i was suddenly being compared with 20 other operators that were all doing the same thing, like churning out.
11:55I see. And I realised that I was fast, I was clean. And then I started to look for other jobs. And in that early 70s, the hot metal was changing to monophoto. Right. And then there was loads of systems coming out with spinning disk technology. It's like when the Apple Mac technology came out, we'd already been through several changes before it got to Apple Mac. So I started to look for jobs using new computer software and computers. And then 1975, which is the year I got married, I got this job. I'll never forget. His name's Ken Howes, who actually trained me on this system that was AKI and a photon paysetter.
12:43And you could intermix eight typefaces, which was unheard of. You could never do that. So in Hot Metal, it was every typeface was done separately. So we suddenly got eight typefaces, and I learned all about it. I, again, became quite good. Changed a few jobs. Went to a company called Zeta all through to get an extra few pounds a week.
13:04Claire:And then... Makes a difference in those days. ...to a company called Best in 1977. And that was something that changed, that gave me a lot more opportunities. because their clients were all ad setters. Sorry, ad agencies. I see. And the heads of each of the ad agency, the head of type, typographer, they were the people you had to be scared of. Right. Roger Kennedy, Sartin Sartin, Maggie Lewis, the JVT, Dave Dye, they were all quite famous. Yeah, okay. Incredibly critical. You didn't want to make a mistake around that. spacing and the kerning of the type wasn't absolutely 100 % then they just wouldn't use you so I became the kerning specialist many of your listeners will even know what kerning is now oh it's such a it shouldn't they should it needs an explanation it's the spacing of type so and if you've got like a word ending with a y which has got a sloping y and you the next thing coming next to it.
14:12It's a full stop. Yeah. You want to talk the full stop onto the bar of the Y.
14:16Claire:Yeah, the space, you'd think the space would be the same between each letter, but it isn't, is it? Because it looks funny and it creates rivers and rivers are, how would you explain rivers? I don't know. Rivers, yeah, if you look at a block of type, I think it's more helpful because I learned to read back to front and upside down. You can spot rivers much easier if you just turn it upside down. Oh, interesting, because you're not as distracted by what it is. Yeah. Yeah. You're not reading the words, you're just looking for the chip so you can see rivers. Rivers literally look like little rivers running through the type.
14:47Claire:Yeah. That's the, yeah. And things like punctuation, we would hang the punctuation in the margin. So if you've got a hyphen or a full stop, you took it in the margin so that visually, anyway. Yeah. I'm slightly obsessed with that. I love it. When I was working with these ad agency typographers, that makes you better at your job because you really like watching for everything. And in 1979, two guys who I'd become really friendly with, one, Ken Hounds, who I mentioned earlier, and Derek, and they wanted to sell their own business because they felt that the people in the ad world, they were charging too much, and there was loads of clients that they were turning down because of the prices.
15:38so they asked me if I would join them and the three of us set up a company ourselves called APT and that was my life changing thing
15:49Claire:yeah okay so that's your first venture into that APT photo set APT photo set there were just three of us we had no staff and we had no clients and we decided that we would focus more on design rather than advertising. So in advertising, you needed a lot more clout behind you to get to those top typographers. Because the bigger company is harder to get into, performance and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, exactly. And the designers, they will work with you as long as you do a really good job for them. So we built this company that became one of the most famous type companies. We were in the ball of the road, which was a bit scummy.
16:34Yeah, yeah, definitely.
16:35Claire:Imagine that, especially in those days. And I was used to scummy because the other agency at best was in Old Kent Road. Yeah, fair enough. So we didn't care where we were, but it wasn't like working in Soho. Yes. And we started to pick up clients and all of those clients, which is why I think my life in design is relevant to me, although I'm not a designer. All my clients were designers. That's what I like telling the story of, We're helping people tell their stories that aren't designers, that there are so many ways to work in the design industry without being a designer. I work in the design industry.
17:12Claire:I'm not a designer. And showing people the sort of different career routes you can have. Yeah. And I went to walking down Woolworth Road, knocking to see if there was anyone that was a likely client. Really? And I saw 88 Campbellville Road. God, I don't know how I remember this. It was the small back room. Oh, wow. Wow, okay. So that's John Rushton. It was John Rushton. Yes. Mark Hosmer at the time. Right, okay. He was my ultra-talented partner. And I went and knocked on the door at 88 Campbell Road and this Afghan hound came out. I think there might have even been two Afghan hounds. It was the trendiest thing I'd ever seen in my life.
17:53You're knocking on the door to talk to them about typesetting and you're being licked by an Afghan hound. I went in and explained that we had just opened up down the road yeah and i gave them the type sheet faces and in those days each typeface cost 200 pound and that was 200 pound that's a lot of the value then yeah probably make it four or five hundred now so they they were expensive and i gave them the type sheet and and they said have you got this particular face i'm saying yeah yeah i've got that we've got a job now i gave me the job to go away but i couldn't believe it i was actually walking back with my first ever job yeah and i'd never sold anything.
18:34I'd always been the one doing the work. Went back, did the work, delivered it back the same day. And they became one of my first... Brilliant. And then it became all the other design groups of the era. Smith & Milton, Tricket & Webb.
18:51Claire:Yeah, of course. Roundhill Design Group. Yeah. Michael Fehrman's Design. Lewis Mobley. Yeah, of course. There were hundreds of them. Yeah. They all had one thing in common. They all wanted their typeset beautifully. Yes, very high standards. If you didn't do that, then they'd just throw you out. We went from having three of us to having 90 staff. Wow, that's amazing. Working three shifts. That was over, what, say 10, 11 years that you were doing? Over 10, 11 years, we were up to about 90 staff working three shifts, which was a lot of work was done overnight. Yeah, okay. We did lots of annual reports for design agencies.
19:33Closer to the end of that, 1987, we were approached by several agencies that wanted to buy us. And we went into conversations and long story short, we sold APT on a three-year run out.
19:48Claire:Right, okay. I didn't realise that. In 1990. Well, no, unless you're of that era, you're way too young. Way too young. But actually we sold the business to a financial agency called Ballon Pollan, who I'd met playing football against their creative director. Great. That's how I became my client. And then they became our parent company. So in 1990, I left after my three-year earn-out. I left, but my two partners stayed on. And they carried on doing what they'd always done, which is typesetting. And I went into this brave new world that became digital. So was that when you started Real Time? Yeah.
20:30Well, Real Time existed. It was a Real Time studio. I see. And Heather Chambers is one of our directors at APT and studio, really great creative. He was at Real Time and he knew that I was in between jobs because I'd left and I couldn't work in opposition.
20:48Claire:Right. Because of my contract. Yeah. And he just said, would you consider just coming over and helping us at Real Time? I ended up being there 13 years and we between us Trevor was amazing but we built real time into a studio that was quite big became one of the first digital studios in the country so what year was this what sort of time was so 1991 is when I joined real time there was no digital back then it didn't exist yeah but we started to work on the idea that the apple mac had come in yes a lot of agencies wanted to do their own work because they got max yeah but they hated all of the agro that went with fonts font licenses yeah um people staffing people save swimmers off they had no one to replace them or finish a job yeah the overnight services that they that we used to so we came up with this idea of talking to the agencies about setting up studios in their in their offices oh interesting this was 1991 yeah before people attack yeah yeah yeah it was probably three years before so my first success story was wcrs right okay we put studio inside WCRS, then inside Yorna War S &G, then Eventon Scott, then Pricewaterhouse Coopers, or Coopers and Lightbrand as it was then, and then Accenture before it became Accenture, when it was Anderson Consulting.
22:25Claire:So just spotting that opportunity and not thinking well, typeset's dead therefore we can't do anything, but actually creating a little bit like now with AI, isn't it? It's like, see the opportunities rather than... It was a lot of my rival in the 80s actually gave up. Yeah, absolutely. They thought the Applebee's going to kill us. Yeah, so it's over. There's nothing we can do. My thought process on that was actually the opposite. Yeah. How can we be a halfway house so that we work with the designers or close? They get the benefits of having it in-house and they're paying less, but actually they don't have the hassle of hiring people.
23:05and at that time if you were working for abuse or is the work had to be go through trade unions in order to get on the newspapers
23:16Claire:yeah of course so if you could find a way of doing part of the job and all of it so that was that period and then because we were in that position of having about 40 of our staff then were actually working remotely and the rest were working in-house. We'd gone from about a dozen to 80 staff. To gain really remote work and that kind of stuff it's not really heard of. It was being innovative but also understanding what designers wanted, what the financial directors wanted. The FDF just wanted to make more money and designers didn't want to lose the access to quality. If you can find a way of bridging that, which we did.
24:03and then we found ourselves in this position where we were doing what digital was before the internet and we were being asked by clients i don't know if you remember the yellow pencil company no they were one of the design agencies of the era and they came to me because they trusted me
Read the full transcript
24:24Claire:because of the type okay so no relation to dnad yellow pencils or anything this is no they wouldn't Yeah, okay. He's hoping he. But they were just, Andy Ewan was the guy. And he said, we've got this brief to put the creative handbook onto a CD-ROM. Yeah, okay. Where do we start? Yes. How do we do it? Is that something you can do? And then all of a sudden, we, Trevor, myself, my little team, were thinking, yes, the answer is yes. We can definitely do it. Yeah. Now we were being asked by companies who are annual report designers, can you put the shell annual report online put the reuters annual report online so people starting to have websites like shell and reuters and stuff like that and starting to work out how you can do it online very early days yeah so is it like interactive pdfs or pdfs going up there how can get our annual report so it's an online thing yeah rather than being just print but it was still before like the web yeah hopefully but it was but it put us in this real-time studio yeah it was in this really strong position of being the people that designers would come to yeah and ask for help and we would hire the techies and some of these techies mark goblow is one of peter peterson they knew stuff that trevor and i hadn't got a clue about but they gelled with our personalities and between patrick bangley came in yeah i had this lovely team of people that were able to talk to designers in the language they understood but then able to talk to techies in the language they understood which was how the hell are you going to put that whole of that big thick book onto a cd rock what what are the technical issues but that was that was how we made the transition and then we had the lucky breaks.
26:17And the lucky breaks, for us, that transformed us from a creative studio into a digital agency. It was... One of the first digital agencies, I assume, ever in existence.
26:31Claire:Yeah, absolutely. And this would have been 95, 96. Yeah. There was a company called London Graphics who had done an auction for an England football shirt signed by all the players. Yeah. And I wasn't there, but my name was pulled out of a raffle. Brilliant. Have you still got it? I've still got it. Excellent. But they were going to put it back in the hat because the person who'd won it wasn't there at this event. And because there were so many people that viewed me at that time, they said, no, you can't do that. Phil's football mad. He will love this. Of course. And so they held it back. They said, we're going to give it to Phil Jones.
27:13Claire:Yeah, my new supporter, of course. I may have, obviously. Well, Manchester, you could only be really red or blue. Yeah, exactly. Although I did play for Rochdale for a while, so I really should support Rochdale. Yeah. This show, they decided that they'd get Print Scene World to do a photograph of Canon. It was Canon UK, the marketing director, presenting the show to me. Brilliant. So there was a photo shoot opportunity in 1996. And this man, his name was Alan Locke, and it was my lucky day, actually, because he was about six foot six. He was a big old lad. And he came around, had the photo shoot, passing the shirt over to me.
27:57But then he said, what do you actually do here? And I started to explain to him about the digital. And he said that he'd been given a brief to do a website for Canon.
28:07Claire:Ah. Okay. Yeah, okay. And he said, he hadn't got a clue where to start. He said, I don't know who to talk to. I don't know how to write the brief. Wow. That's so fortuitous. This is in the days when nobody had a way to write. And he said, can we do a deal? He said, if I ask you to help me write the brief, I'll make sure that you're on the pitch list to present to us when we put it out to Tinder. Yeah. And I couldn't believe my luck, really. So I turned out to Trevor and the rest of the gang and said, look, we've got a really good opportunity here. so we helped write the brief yeah and then we got to pitch for it and we won the Canon UK website so that was their first ever website it was their first ever website wow and we did a really good job on it and then they said Canon Europe were lucky to have a website done and they didn't want to put it out to pitch because they'd seen what we'd done yeah they wanted to work with us so we ended up with Canon UK Canon Europe wow and then the the luckiest thing of all I say lucky in inverted commas.
29:11Claire:It's not really lucky. It's seeing the right moment. It's the skill. Yeah, you make your own luck. Exactly. It's an element of right place, right time, isn't it? But you're doing the right thing as well. And risk-taking. Just taking risks. Yeah, definitely. Hiring people that you weren't sure you'd ever have a job. Yeah. That's risk. But then I got the phone call from Diesel. Yeah, of course. In Italy. Oh, wow. The guy wasn't Italian. and he was actually an American from Ohio. His name was Bob Shevlin. And he phoned me up. He said, I've just seen the work you've done for Canon. We need online work done over here at Diesel.
29:50He said, the owner, who is Italian, Renzo Rossi, I think his name was, he said, wants to work with local people.
29:56Claire:Yeah. He said, but they're all shit. He said, no, and I've decided, but I need to work with somebody that I can trust. Yeah. And he said, can I come over and meet you? and he obviously I'm going to say yes yeah of course he flew in from Italy to meet us for this presentation but the day that he chose to come and meet us we had just done a free website for a guy called Larry Barker at WCRS yeah who was upset about the Dunblane accident you know yeah yeah absolutely and we created a website that was for the anti-gun wow okay yeah fantastic We did it just as a favour. But what it meant was that because my name was on it, we became a target for all the gun.
30:46Wow, wow. And this was, I think it was 96. Could have been 97, but it was that. It was around then. And when the guy came from Italy to meet me, I'd had a bomb delivered, not a pretend bomb. And it was actually to me.
31:03Claire:So a pretend bomb was delivered or an actual. It had wires in it. Oh my God, that's terrifying. We'd been getting a piece of stuff sent to us. Bloody hell. But this parcel arrived with wires. And when some secretary opened again, there was wires there. And we said, no, we need to just phone the police. Yeah. And it was a bomb scare, the idea. Oh my God. But my office, by then, we'd gone upmarket. I was at 7 Soho Square. That's my point. I was no longer in the Woolworth Road or the old Kent Road. I was suddenly at Seven Soh Square. That is a very good address. And they closed the building. And I've got this guy coming from Diesel to meet me in my office.
31:46Oh, my God. In my offices.
31:48Claire:But this is like prime IRA time of bombs guys in London anyway. It was. I mean, obviously, also, it's a proper bombs guy. Bloody hell. It was. And because we'd had all the stuff sent to us, they couldn't, they had to take it serious. But it meant that the Sohouse Square all around that area was sealed off. So I had to phone the guy, Bob, who was coming in and said, I really apologise for this. You can't come to my office. I'll explain why over a cup of tea. But can we meet at a cafe close by? And so my first meeting with Diesel was actually at a local cafe. Was it? I think it was a Star Cafe, actually, which was one of Linda Ralph Knight's special places.
32:29Claire:Oh, really? Yeah, okay. I'm doing a sales pitch to an American. We're an Italian brand over a cup of tea in a cafe. But when he found out the reason for all of the shutdown was me, I went up in his estimation. I suddenly had street cred that I didn't deserve. But I suddenly said, this is all your fault. And we're still friends to this day. Are you? Fantastic. so then did you win the opportunity to do their website diesel became our client we did all the fashion collections for diesel two a year for the next eight nine years so they became our flagship that's brilliant sexy brand what an amazing yeah company to work with that's great and off the back of having diesel in canon we were able to suddenly start pitching for stuff that we would never have been able to pitch for previously and we were winning.
33:28We picked up quite a few sports clients at the time. Yes, okay. You interviewed Jonathan Sands. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Elmwood fame. Jonathan, I love Jonathan.
33:40Claire:Yeah, me too. He's fantastic. I remember pitching him against him for the Premier League, no, for the FA, for the logo for England's bid to host the World Cup. He was on the pitch as well. It was Elwood, Elwood were on the pitch. Did they win? Me, as real tight, of course he had no chance. He was up against a proper northerner who is football mad. There was just no way he was going to win that. Of course. So we won it. So Trevor, Trevor and I were in that pitch. We ended up creating the logo for, but what he did do is he picked up the profitable work. Jonathan, he did the actual annuals that, or the manuals that went with it.
34:21Right, okay. I created the brand. I remember seeing the logo outside 10 Downing Street being held by Tom Finney. Oh, wow. Annie Matthews, Bobby Charlton, Gary Lineker, and the Prime Minister of the time, who I can't remember who that was in the 90s. God, that's mind-blowing, isn't it? Holding our logo. Yeah. And it was just one of those moments where you think, that was us. Wow. Trevor, that's ours, you know. So, but Jonathan and I are still mates.
34:48Claire:Yeah. anyway we're all absolutely worn off it turns in my head now the Prime Minister John Major Tony Blair is 97 is it John Major I think it was John Major right okay that's I think it's I can send you the picture because I've still got it obviously that's so cool but we were just picking up cool clients and we suddenly had a reputation we'd never had before we were all seen as people who could help other companies fix something yeah but all of a sudden we were pitching for like top end brand work yeah and i'm winning and then we pitched for the premier league to be the first ever premier league website wow i love how it all builds it's brilliant that's amazing for england we did first ever sporting website we did the identity for uk athletics when it was david moorcroft right was our client yeah and then uk sport yeah came after uk athletics so we was suddenly building this pool of identity work we were doing and each one you win makes it easier to win yes of course you've got the credibility and the reputation and yeah that's amazing we occasionally bring in outside designers who have certain skills and you know helen keys don't you yeah of course x phillips yeah glad we're there to design it was on the bta launch which is wow authority okay and she had a team of our designers were reporting it to her yeah helen's fantastic it was great but then we they said to us can you uh we need to do the launch at the odium that's just where yeah we had our own music studio wow real time richard henson who is now in australia and he worked the music and we created this animation for the launch of of uk support Yeah.
36:39And that was, sorry, BTA, that one. And that was then shown at the old in Leicester Square. And the Prime Minister then in Leicester Square with all of these people coming. That's amazing. I know. It's a blow your mind, yeah. You know, Bournemouth Road. Totally. Square. And now 10 Downing Street.
36:59Claire:Yeah. That's amazing. So is it around this time that Podge started to be formed? This was like late 90s. Podge is, when was it, 19? Can you explain what podge is for anyone that doesn't know? Podge, first of all, the word podge is I'd always associated podge with if you drink a lot, you eat a lot, you get a fat tummy. That is called the podge. So back in my Manchester days, if you had a bit of a belly, it would be a podge. podgy and in the early 90s i'd sold my business and so all of the clients that i've had through the 80s who were pentagram with alan fletcher yeah okay marshall of anna and now i'm anna tattersfield all of these designers of the era yeah we're all having hard times because the early night at michael peters ron d fitch and the early 90s was it was a recession and it was not a good time to be a design group really or a typeset or even worse yeah and i wanted to say thank you to a lot of the people that had been my clients for the previous 10 years yes and there was no obvious way of doing it and i just thought what if i do an organisme lunch where we get a group people together split the bill just do a do a nice i'll sort i'll sort the venue yeah i will get all the correspondence going backwards and forwards bear in mind there's no emails it was literally by fax or by letter and i'll choose a venue and at the time terence comrade had just opened quadrino's yeah absolutely so and they had a private room at the top that i had a glass front and i phoned them and said how many people do i need to have to be able to book that room and they said minimum 14 maximum 30 and i thought i know i can get 14 yeah together and i've just found them so i phoned mike denny at round gore phoned all these various designers and said really fancy doing this it's like get everyone together for a launch are you up for it Glenn Tutsal was instrumental in this.
39:23Claire:Yeah, okay. And they said, yeah, it was a great idea. And can I bring someone with me? So if I recommend someone. So I thought, if I invite 14 people and they each invite one person, then I'll end up with my 30. And that's what we did. And then I realized when I'd got them all and got the 30 and I was corresponding with them by phone and by letter, I realized I had to give it a name because it didn't have a name. but I've got a room full of some of the most famous designers. Eric Spiekeman was there. Wow. What room was everyone owned a design agency? The partners. Yeah, okay. The original partners.
40:00It was this room full of legends and it didn't have a name. It was just like me, like the Bournemouth Road Boy, phoning them. And so I thought a pudge lunch. Yeah. We're all going to eat a lot. We're all going to drink a lot and that'll do. Yeah. So I even got Trevor even designed a little logo for it, which he's ashamed of to this day. I thought it was great. But Trevor didn't realize it was going to be shown in front of all of those superstars. So it was a one-off lunch and it was just meant to be a one-off lunch. And at the end of it, they were all asking me whether I could do it again and get them together again.
40:40Yeah. And so the following year, I did it again at the Atlantic Bar and Grill. and then it went from 30 to 50. And then it just became a thing. Everyone was saying, oh, please do it. So for 10 years, I kept bringing together. And everyone just loved the idea that it was random. There was no awards. No one got to choose who they sat next to. They didn't have to worry about anything apart from just paying their share of whatever the bill was
41:10Claire:and turning up. And they loved it. And then in 2003, the editor of New Media Rage and the publisher, and we had lunch at Smithfield, which is where I'm going later, actually. And they said, this lunch that you do is incredible. We in digital can't get to that level of people. Would you consider doing a digital version of Podge? Great. We will help you in any way we can. yeah but it's really just saying that whatever support you need if you need admin support my help so i started digital podge in 2023 brilliant so you got design podge and digital podge digital podge yeah and two years later one of my clients at the fa jimmy moral yeah who he was working with us on a lot of projects that we were working with and he said this thing that you do with digital and desire this podge thing, that would work really well for sport.
42:10And you've got loads of sports contacts and so have I. Why don't we do a sports podge? That's brilliant. So a sports podge this year, sorry, next year, is 21 years old. Wow. Digital podge was 21 years old last year. That's so good. And design podge was 30 years old.
42:27Claire:And this year is a particularly special year for design and digital podge because they're coming together for the first time, which of course should happen. i've always kept them apart because the design polish people especially the ones of a certain age yes they're very precious yeah about not wanting to be sat on a table with them digital types those taking they want to be sat next to someone they can talk about paper with yeah you know gf smith that would they'd love to chat with someone about their quality and i've always kept apart for that reason. But I think over the last four, five, six years, there's actually, it's an artificial separation.
43:09Because every design agency works with digital. Exactly. And they even like them now, I think. They don't even dislike them anymore.
43:17Claire:Well, we'll see what happens in December. It could all kick off. We're just quite all together and we're going to have 340 people at the Old World Cricket Club on the 5th of December. That's so cool. Oh, that's a, yeah. There you go. Yeah, that is a pretty good. Did you have a musical, a music one at some point or have I just made that up? No, you haven't made it up. We did it, we've only did it for one year and I did it at the Café Royal and it was fantastic. And it was in the Pompadour room, Café Royal, which is quite famous for doing things, blowing stones in Elton John and lots of famous musicians.
43:54But the manager of the Café Royal at the time was a friend of mine, Ian Palmer, and he helped us, he subsidized it, got the room for us at a price that we could all afford. And we were able to get a really interesting group of people together. But the following year, he'd left the Café Royal. And so it suddenly had to stand on its own two feet.
44:16Claire:And then it suddenly, yeah. Everyone's got to pay. The podge won't work unless everybody pays. Of course, yeah. And it's harder to go to Stephen Wunder's manager, who was at the first one and asking him to pay. Or Adamant, who was at the first. Yeah, brilliant. We had all these, Chris Matthews, you know, they were all at the first one. Yeah. How do you make them pay more to come? So he's sort of slipped away. But we have thought a few times about maybe doing it, but probably we'll do it as part of digital. We'll just merge it in with yours. Yeah, it's a good idea. Yeah. So tell me about Bieber and how did you get to the point of being inducted into the Hall of Fame?
44:59Claire:Because that's a pretty big deal. It was. It's one of my proudest moments. Yes. Because of my apprenticeship, you couldn't be any more historic. It's like metal type. It was of an era and it was maybe the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s. And it was the end of an era when I came. and to actually be voted into the Digital Hall of Fame, the first one that they'd ever done. And it was actually looking at the other people who were on it that made me think. There's Johnny Ive of Apple. Oh, my God. That's like... It was like, appropriately, the guy that invented the internet was a hot man. Tim Berners-Lee. Tim Berners-Lee.
45:39Claire:That's amazing. So there was a list of 10 people. I was up going down. The only name I'd ever recognized was mine. because they were all like they all would deserve to be on the list of course you did but i can see it must felt yeah it must have felt for a different reason i think what they all felt was i was more building the communities that actually allowed people to come together yeah whether they be digital or design but so they i think i was nominated more for what I did for the digital communities rather than something mega that I'd invented. I think the first websites and all that kind of stuff, it's still, it's game-changing stuff, isn't it?
46:24Actually, in those days of digital, in the 90s, a lot of the people that went on to sell their digital agencies for lots of money used to come to Trevor and I as like the elder statesman. Trevor's 10 years younger than me, by the way. we were the elder statesman and because we'd had careers before digital whereas a lot of those young guys uh justin cook chris perry who went on to do really really well felix velardi they used to come to us for advice yes and we would we would just openly give advice to everybody and i think that helped yeah we had a reputation that's just been sort of decent nice people yeah But we're trying to be protective.
47:10And it's more fun that way.
47:12Claire:Yeah, of course. You have more friends. Definitely. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, it's a really impressive thing to happen. So tell me about the creative industries generally. What do you find challenging about it? What do you enjoy? I have always loved working. Yeah. They're a funny lot. If you think all of my clients were designers throughout the 80s, So I got used to going for a brief. And it was someone in a design agency. So people that became famous later, when I used to work with them, they were juniors. And they would be asking for help and advice. And some of those people, they'd get really angry because it wasn't what they wanted.
47:56But when you sat with them and explain why it wasn't. I'll tell you one story. I've never met Mary Lewis.
48:04Claire:Oh, was this the first time you met Mary? No, I've still not met her. I've still not met her. Oh my God, do you need to be introduced at some point? She's fantastic. Is she? Yeah. Well, she had a, she, their designers used different typesetters. They were, and they all were working, and they weren't allowed to use us or anyone that hadn't been approved by Mary. Yes, of course. And they had a young designer there called Ashley. I think it was Ashley Carter. I'm good from memory. 30 years. Yeah. And who'd been given a job that was for Oban whiskey. And it was in Bertolt's script. And it had to go on a bottle, which meant it was wider at the top and narrower at the bottom.
48:47And it had to be justified both sides. Have you tried to do that with a script typeface where you've got overhangs?
48:54Claire:Yeah. A really difficult job. and he'd sent it to two typesetters and both had sent him back something he really wasn't happy with. And then he didn't ask permission from Mary, but he sent it to me and said, would you mind having a go at this? And if it's okay, then I can show it to Mary. And then John went on to win the D &AD Award for Typography. Now, she never knew I was involved in it. Didn't know who I was. Yeah, okay. Still doesn't know who I was. Right, I'm going to introduce you. This young designer was like, They said, God, how did you do that? How did you? And it was just like giving it the eye.
49:32So sometimes your question was about the industry. Sometimes the people that own them could be quite difficult. And the designers themselves, they were brilliant. They're not the designer, but their bosses would give any number of reasons why they didn't want to pay the full rate. And Mike Denny at Randall and John Bates, I've seen this far, I used to call him 90-day dinny. You knew that you would eventually get paid, but it would be 90 days later. And so we had a few of them. So that was what I said. Not always the quickies to pay. Yes. Well done. Yeah, I can imagine.
50:14Claire:Can I ask you a final question of tips for young people starting out today? How do you think people can set themselves apart? One of the things that I've found is the work that I did going around art colleges, giving my time free, has paid back dividends that I can't even begin to explain. So what did you used to do? What was the… Well, in my case, because I was involved in the type industry, I would go to various colleges, Manchester, Preston, Newcastle, Gwent, Newport, all over the country, Ravensbourne, and talk to the students about different design agencies, what they were working on, which work was winning the awards.
51:03Oh, interesting. Talk about typography. Just talk about type and why something looked really good. why something maybe didn't look as good. But it was giving time. But at that time, we produced our type books. And unlike the one sheet that I'd gone to small back room with all those years earlier, we actually had three volumes of these books. And I'd always give them to the college. So they got free of charge. But those relationships that you form when people are younger, students, became a lifetime. Like for me, the reason I was working for so long after I'd given up full-time work was because a lot of those people I'd met as students were wanting me to join them as mentor or advisor.
51:53Yeah. The names I'll mention, Jeff Nichol, who founded Navy Blue. Jeff was at Newcastle. Darren Richardson was up there at Newcastle.
52:03Claire:Yeah, okay. Mike Curtis and Darren Whittingham that was Start Creative. Yeah. Preston. Patrick Bagley was at Manchester. But if you get to know people before you're selling them anything and you're just there giving them advice and help. Yeah. So my advice is to do more than nothing. So we always, all the punch lunches, we have students helping us. I love that. It's great. And those students get the chance to be going around tables talking to people that if they were in an interview, they probably wouldn't give them the time of day. But because they're seen to be trusted by us, they've got to volunteer.
52:46Claire:Put yourself forward, get in there, do that kind of stuff. Yeah, do more stuff. You and I were both involved with the Josiah Community Hub. Absolutely. And that was really the same thing, is how do you help students become more prominent? And you're in the PR industry. I'm actually a professional. Yeah. You know, I'm accidental, if you like. But I like the idea of people just volunteering. Yeah, mine's a bit accidental too, but it is that. How can I help? Just meeting people and, yeah, how can I help? And that's a boring story, wasn't it? It wasn't a boring story. No, not at all. I think it's brilliant.
53:26Claire:I feel like a chief designer. This is my designer's experience. I'm not a designer. Oh my God, it's so important. You're not a designer, but you're so influential in the design industry. And this has been amazing. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I've loved it. Thank you for inviting me.
From the publisher
In the last of the series, Claire sat down with Phil Jones, a true design innovator and a major force in the UK’s creative, digital, design and sports industries. Now best known as the founder of the invite-only Podge Lunches, Phil is also a mentor, consultant, and former MD of leading digital and typography agencies. He’s a pioneer of digital design and was voted into the BIMA Digital Hall of Fame in 2012.
On the podcast, Phil shares his epic career journey from typesetting for London’s best design agencies, founding one of the first digital studios in the UK and creating the first websites for brands including Canon and Diesel, to the origins of the very first Podge Lunch - and how it became such an influential design community-building event.
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