ISTD Members

Here are the people behind the ISTD organisation – the elected Board, all of whom work for ISTD on a voluntary basis.

John has been the education officer for the ISTD since 2001 and is a senior lecturer in graphic design at the University of Ulster. 

His career in education was preceded by 13 years as practising designer, working mainly in the arts, publishing, exhibition and educational fields. His clients included Ulster Museum, the Arts Council, BBC TV, The National Trust and the Port of Belfast. John also worked as creative director of an advertising agency. 

He was made an Honorary Academician of the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts in the early 90s and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts a few years later. He is currently chair of the Belfast Print Workshop and has served as a regional chair and council member of the Chartered Society of Designers. John was a founder member of STET, the ISTD education team, and has contributed to the development of the society's role in design education over the last five years, including organising the first ISTD Student Assessment Scheme in Dublin in 2002. John sees the continuing international growth of the scheme as his most important challenge within the society.

Becky joined the board in 1994 after studying typographic design at the London College of Printing (now the London College of Communication). After working at Typographics in London, Becky took the newly created position of designer at the National Film Theatre, leading a design and production team responsible for a producing all of the NFT's promotional promotional materials. During this time Becky was also creative director of the 41st and 42nd London Film Festivals.

In late 1999 Becky moved to Perth, Western Australia where she set up a design practice, Chil3, providing services from brand identity to book design for local and international clients.

As Australasian coordinator for the ISTD, Becky introduced the society in the region with the first Australasian Student Assessment Scheme held in Melbourne in November 2009. Becky has lectured in typographic design and runs typographic workshops throughout Australia.

David first became involved with ISTD after successfully completing the Student Assessment Scheme whilst at Kingston University.

Working as a full-time and freelance designer for over 12 years, he has been responsible for producing corporate identities and literature, marketing campaigns, websites and exhibitions for a diverse range of clients including News International, Land Securities, 3i and Clintons solicitors.

With a passion for typography and with the support of like-minded Board members, David became Co-deputy Chair in 2009 and is centrally involved in the management of the ISTD Awards, Student Assessment Schemes, lectures and publications.

Nick Kapica was born in 1967 in London and is founder and partner of SV Associates in Berlin. He received a degree in visual communication from Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication in 1985 and in 1990 moved to Berlin where he has been living until moving to Wellington, New Zealand in 2009.

Passionate about visual communication, extremely interested in architecture and design his favourite projects are those requiring a multitude of disciplines. 

He is currently exploring new methods of teaching typography and the potential benefits of using online teaching to do this. He is developing the first year typographic programme and a cross disciplinary paper between Typography and Spatial Design at Massey University.

Belinda Magee studied graphics at Middlesex and started her career at a London design group in the late 1970s. She worked in editorial design through the 80s, at The Observer, and started her own design practice in 1987. Her clients have ranged from large corporate clients to leading charities and other organisations within the non-for-profit sector. Alongside her practice, she been a part-time lecturer since the late 1980s; working at The London Institute, Bath Spa University, and more recently as an Associate Tutor at Goldsmiths, London. Her academic work also includes External Examining posts. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Marc Peter studied Typography in Switzerland, where he freelanced for five years as a graphic designer with clients including Microsoft, Telekurs and Lexmark. In 1999 Marc received an MA in Interactive Media from the London College of Communication (formerly the London College of Printing) and co-founded on-IDLE, a design and web development agency with clients including the General Medical Council, Saudi Arab British Bank (SABB), the ISTD, the University of Art & Design Zurich (HGKZ), TPC AG, Air New Zealand, Lufthansa, Star Alliance and the New West End Company.

At on-IDLE Marc specialises in conceptualisation and implementation, with a strong focus on usability and Flash for web design, alongside corporate branding and literature design. An experienced tutor, Marc regularly teaches in a number of colleges and companies in Switzerland (HGKZ, Kuoni and InfoBOX), Germany (Macromedia Tours) and the UK (LCC, TMP Worldwide). Marc regularly publishes industry-related articles for the UK and German markets and is also the author and designer of two successful books on Flash and interactivity.

Clare studied design at Nottingham Trent University and, before graduating, had secured her first full-time employment at The Times, where she designed promotional and exhibition material. In 1996 she moved to Synergy Communications where she ultimately became Assistant Design Director before leaving to set up her own company Playne Design in August 2004.

With over 16 years' experience in brand and publication design, Clare's skills combine traditional design craft with a love for colour and typography. A methodical thinker with a keen eye for information design, her diverse range of clients have included The Royal Society, Channel 4, Cross River Partnership, LDA, John Lewis Partnership, New Opportunities Fund, Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers in New York.

Erik succeeded the late Colin Banks as President of the ISTD in 2002. He is one of the best-known figures on the international typographic scene. A type and typographic designer, he has built a solid reputation for high quality typography and original, sometimes acerbic, always entertaining, commentary on typographic life. Now working as an independent design consultant, Erik previously founded both the leading font marketing company FontShop, and MetaDesign, a design group specialising in complex, often large, corporate design programmes and information systems. He is a member of the board of directors of the ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale), a member of the Type Directors Club New York, The Art Directors Club, an honorary member of the Typographic Circle London, and D&AD. Among the other positions he holds are Vice-President of the German Design Council, and President of the IIID, (International Institute for Information Design). He holds an honorary professorship at the Academy of Arts in Bremen and teaches workshops at design schools across the world.

Benjamin studied design at Newcastle School of Art but has always had a keen interest in technology. After working at MPL and Samson Tyrell, he worked for SAS design for nine years where he became their Interactive Creative Director.

During his time there, he was responsible for creative direction and information architecture for some of the most innovative work the company produced. This included award-winning websites such as foxtons.co.uk, ‘Taxi Art’ for Radio Taxis, ‘Making The Modern World’ for the Science Museum and various branding work for BT, Sony Ericsson and Lovells.

In 2005 he moved to ico Design where he worked with clients such as Shell, Penguin, Wellcome Trust, Wieden+Kennedy and the Science Museum. Ben’s unique skills combine his traditional brand identity design background with his enthusiasm for new technologies and interface design.

His most recent projects include putting an internet enabled robot into the Houses of Parliament, creating a talking meeting room table for W+K, and developing a series of tools that allow children to make stories online for Penguin. 

Benjamin joined Poke as a creative director in April 2010. 

Andy served on the ISTD council from 1989 until 1996 and re-joined the council and the board in 2002. In the 90s he chaired the Publications Committee and was responsible for the Society's re-branding and publications review. He has been in design practice for nearly 30 years. After graduating from Ravensbourne in 1981 and a two-year spell in a West End design agency, Andy launched The Junction, a practice in central London providing corporate and consumer communications, brand identity and information design for a broad range of corporate clients, together with creative agency facilities to PR and advertising agencies. In 1995 Tina Carter joined the practice as partner and in 2002 the partner rebranded as Day1, broadening the scope of services to clients to include a strategic management consultancy arm. Andy continues to focus on integrated communications solutions across all media and business channels. Over the last ten years Andy has led the development of strategic partnerships with technology and management consultancy organisations and individuals. Projects have included internal communications for Sainsbury's, communications consultancy for Earth Centre, a £70 million millennium project, and direction of brand strategy and communications planning and delivery for INTO University Partnerships as part of its senior management team, which is reshaping international higher education provision in the UK and USA.

Richard has been an independent consultant since 1989. Since graduating from Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication in 1987, he has built broad experience in optimising visual communications across different media.

An award-winning designer, his body of work includes projects for the public and corporate sectors, the film & media industry and the arts. He has built a reputation for continually challenging technical and creative boundaries in the development of his information design solutions.

From 1999 he established Wolfstrome Design, providing consultation and development of corporate identity and brand, information and book design, arts projects and the design and production of interactive learning applications.

Richard was recently elected to the board of the ISTD and also sits on the board of British Design Innovation (South East).