Panos Vassiliou is a type designer, Head of Creative and founder of Parachute®, a type foundry and branding studio focusing on bespoke type design. He started his design career creating artwork for community and university groups as well as concert venues for local Toronto bands. Early on, as a student at the university, he developed an interest in letterpress and type design while working as an apprentice at a printing house in Toronto. Panos is a graduate of the University of Toronto, Canada with a major in Applied Science and Engineering. Following his University of Toronto graduation, he studied Graphic Communications at Ryerson University.

In his early transition years, he got involved with a theatre company, founded a design studio and pursued an academic career as a lecturer at George Brown College in Toronto. A few years later, after moving to Athens, he became the Editorial Director of the iconic Status magazine before starting his own publishing company. At the end, his obsession with typography was desisive enough to turn his passion into a profession.

He has collaborated with advertising and branding agencies in Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia to design bespoke typefaces for companies and organizations such as Bank of America, European Commission, UEFA, Samsung, Ikea, Financial Times, National Geographic.

His work as a type designer has spawned numerous brand-defining typefaces over the past 15 years. In 2012, Vassiliou was awarded the prestigious Grand Prix by Red Dot. He has also been honoured by TDC New York, European Design Awards, Tokyo TDC, German Design Awards, Communication Arts, HiiiBrand, Creative Review, Granshan Awards, Communication Arts.

His main interest today is the psychology behind type design and its impact on successful brands.

When not thinking type, he often hits the road on his bobber or sets sail for the Greek islands.