Paul grew up in Shropshire, England and like all kids loved his toys growing up. Collecting armies of ‘He-man’, ‘Action Force’, ‘Transformers’, and buckets of Lego — and spending hours setting them all up in elaborate action scenes — inspired him to draw his favourite characters whenever he wasn’t playing with them!
Enjoying Design at school (in particular the sketch exploration and quick problem solving), Paul went on to study ‘Industrial Design and Technology’ at Loughborough University, where many of his designs were inspired by his favourite films and comics like Star Wars and 2000AD.
Despite continuing to collect toys with whatever leftover money he had at the end of the week, Paul hadn’t realised that toy design was a possible career – until Lego visited his Design Degree show and asked him to apply for a job as Designer.
Five years of living and working in Denmark as a Lego Designer was a dream job for Paul, where he learnt how to combine his love of toys and play with his love of Design.
In 2006 Paul set up his own Design consultancy (designbytouch, together with a friend and colleague from LEGO), and he now designs toys for toy companies all around the world (as well as occasionally working on digital games, TV shows, and films).
Paul’s favourite projects include helping Lego create Ninjago and NexoKnights, and getting to work on his own design of Optimus Prime for Hasbro’s Rescue Bots! The opportunity to help redesign a favourite toy from his childhood (and adulthood!) was a dream project for Paul!
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