Pipes's college textbooks have become standards in their field, with Production For Graphic Designers currently in its 5th printing.
Also known as Fred Pipes or Alan (Fred) Pipes (so named after his resemblance to Freddie Garrity singer with the Manchester band Freddie and the Dreamers), he is also a cartoon illustrator, an artist and printmaker, exhibiting regularly in the Brighton,[2] Adur and Worthing[3] Artists Open House festivals since 1996.
He has been a committee member of the Brighton Illustrators Group since 1990 and has been webmaster of Channel 4's archaeology television programme Time Team[citation needed] since 1998.
He's already acquired a cult following on the South Coast with his web-gallery of improbable, impractical and sometimes impassable bits of municipal road-marking.
Now he's expanding his search nationwide to try to find Britain's most ludicrous bus and cycle lanes.