Plover Hexstrom
CEO
Founder story
I started Atlas & Roe to draw the same letter every day.
Six years into running a one-person studio out of a converted bakery, I asked my old college roommate to join. This is the long version of why.
Chapter 1
Before the studio.
I was a junior designer at a global agency, redrawing the same logo for the fifth pharmaceutical client of the year. The brief said modern. The work said previous decade. I quit on a Wednesday.
For two years I freelanced from my flat in Brixton. Slowly, the work changed. Independent breweries. A bookshop. A pair of architects who wanted their wordmark drawn, not picked from a font menu.
Chapter 2
Finding the practice.
I called Theo. We had been arguing about kerning since freshman year. He had been art director at a magazine in Berlin for half a decade and was, by his own admission, ready to draw letters with his hands again.
Atlas & Roe opened in 2023 in a converted bakery in Hackney. The oven is still there. We use it for client meetings.
The team
Meet a few of us.
Plover Hexstrom
CTO
Plover Hexstrom
Design
Plover Hexstrom
Engineering
Values
What we hold to.
◆
Draw, do not pick.
Every wordmark we ship started as a pencil sketch. Type drawing is the studio first language.
⟁
One studio, two voices.
We are intentionally small. Both of us are on every project. Always.
∞
The brand is a system.
A mark is one artefact of many. We ship the whole apparatus.
Curious about working together?
We take on six projects a year. The waitlist for 2027 opens in November.
Get in touch