After retiring in 2004, he moved back to Scotland, and opened Quarto to visitors as a working press using traditional hand-set letterpress. He’s married with three adopted children, now grown up. 

Why did you get into printing? 

Because when I designed student publications in the 1960s, local printers changed the designs because they didn’t fit their ideas

Who would play you in a movie about your life?  

These days, probably Gabby Hayes

What is your dream bit of kit? 

A Heidelberg Kord Cylinder press

What is your favourite TV programme? 

The original House of Cards. I’m convinced I was at college with people it was based on

Who do you admire most in print? 

Beatrice Warde, design advisor at the Monotype Corporation

What is your favourite saying? 

‘It depends what you mean by…’

What is your greatest luxury in life? 

My printshop

What is the strangest job you’ve ever done?

A certificate for a Japanese firm with the image formed on the back by ink soak-through on the tissue paper

Who would you like to be stuck on a desert island with? 

My wife – we’re different, but we make a good team

What is your greatest ambition? 

To have made a difference

Who or what makes you laugh?  

The Goons

Which celebrity would you like to get out of here? Why? 

The few I’ve met have all been perfectly normal and nice people

Most embarrassing moment?  

Disappointingly but mercifully, they all merge into suppressed areas of my subconscious

Where would you like to be now?  

In my body of 30 years ago

Which superpower would you like? 

Kml,j  [Editor’s note: We were a bit nonplussed by this answer and spent some time trying to work it out. It turns out John’s cat had walked across the keyboard!]

Who would be your favourite party guests? 

Terry Pratchett, Melvyn Bragg, Billy Connolly and Mariella Frostrup

What is the worst kind of print?  

The stuff where designers forget to consider legibility, especially by using microscopic type sizes only made possible by digital processes

What was the best business deal that you’ve pulled off?  

I set up a video copying service within an educational establishment that self-financed successfully for several years

How would you like to be remembered? 

Favourably

Life is…? 

Trying to understand other people, so you can really do as you would be done by