The early years

LanguageFlow was started in 1993. It was still the early years of the DTP revolution, and we started with just a small collection of Apple Macs running Quark XPress. Paul Hutchings and Philip Buckley, the founders, brought respectively to the company considerable experience of running a traditional design studio and an ability to make the most of the new computer technology. We opened an office in central London on the edge of The City, and in the early years we did a lot of typesetting of city documents - financial documents, annual reports, legal documents.

We were also tasked with typesetting a series of documents in a number of European languages for one of America's largest companies that at the time was expanding its operations in Europe. This was at the time when it was not yet common to typeset in many languages. And it was this work that laid the foundation for our specialism in multilingual typesetting.

The middle years

In the middle years we increasingly focussed on multilingual projects. We developed the LanguageFlow software, with which we can flow translations into InDesign (or Quark), thus typesetting multiple language versions quickly and accurately. We also developed and refined a set of working practices geared specifically to managing multilingual projects. We employed more staff including project managers with particular expertise in multilingual projects.

The present

In January 2009 we moved our main office to Westerham in Kent. Whereas in 1993 it was necessary to have offices in central London, the developments in the internet and supporting technologies have meant that we can offer the same services as always from anywhere. In Westerham we have a team of dtp operators supported by a team of project managers. We also have a number of remote workers who have dedicated access to our work servers in Westerham.

Key personnel

Paul Hutchings: Managing Director
Philip Buckley: IT Director
Lesley Cameron: Marketing Director
Sam James: Project Manager
Katie Jimenez: Project Manager