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Bermondsey barber gets a website for Christmas after featuring in Time Out London

Paul Waller By Paul Waller Designer
Bermondsey barber gets a website for Christmas after featuring in Time Out London
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Barber Vangelos Georgiou has been cutting hair at George Gents' Hairdresser on Bermondsey street since 1970. Over the years he's seen dramatic changes to the neighbourhood, from factories to luxury shops and flats, with a knock on effect for his business as costs have risen and the factory workers who lived and worked in the area moved away.

When journalist Danielle Goldstein interviewed Georgiou for Time Out London, Georgiou mentioned that he didn't have a phone or website because of the expense. Staff at endjin, a business and technology consultancy which is based round the corner from George's, happened to see the article, and decided to offer him what big businesses call a "digital transformation", free of charge.

Timeout article about George's Gent's Hairdressers

Paul Waller from endjin, said "we love Bermondsey's rich character and history. As relative newcomers, we were glad of the opportunity to help out a Bermondsey street legend. After we saw the article, we popped in to see Vangelos and asked if he'd like us to help. Following a short chat, we started out by creating a logo to match his long standing brand, then spent half a day designing and building a website for him."

"We also registered George Gents' Hairdressers with Google, so he shows up on Google Maps," added endjin Apprentice Alice Waddicor. "We noticed he'd had a 5-star customer review before we'd even gone live, which goes to show the power of having your brand on the web, especially if you are an ultra-local business like George's. We hope that an online presence will give George's a boost in the run up to Christmas, and help it to be a part of the street for a good while yet."

Georgiou said "it's great to be online, and I'm looking forward to meeting new faces."

Endjin are a business and technology consultancy and were based in Bermondsey, London until 2017, whose clients include Watchfinder, Reed.co.uk and TalkTalk. They can usually be found advising global businesses and startups on their technology strategy, and don't normally build websites for barbershops, except at Christmas.

Paul Vangelos and Alice at the shop

Update: After 48 years, Vangelos has now retired and shut the shop.

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Paul Waller

Designer

Paul Waller

Paul had over 25 years of creative experience in design; delivering user and customer experiences across 3D, print, physical, and digital disciplines. At endjin, Paul enabled customers and the team to visualise abstract concepts. Whether it was UX for websites or apps, compelling dashboards or impactful reports, television props for the Great British Menu, illustrations and animations for promotion and marketing campaigns, or logos and iconography for design systems, Paul was responsible for making concepts look and feel great, in a way our customers can understand.

Paul became passionate about accessibility, data visualisation and data storytelling. He collaborated on several Power BI Data Story Gallery examples, including: House Price Analysis - 30 Years, 30 Million Data Points: Unlocking England and Wales Housing Insight, Global Brand Insights: 20 Years of Financial Trends, Learning From Disaster - Titanic Passenger Diagnostics, and Accessible Data Storytelling: World Bank Heath and Wealth Report.

Paul was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease in 2024, and passed away in February 2025. He was endjin's first employee and made a huge contribution to the company, our customers, and the wider community. He was the best, and we miss him every day.

how quickly time passes, and you must try to savour every moment, be it at home or, in your professional life. Capitalise on your ambitions, but don't forget your family.

Paul Waller, 30th September 2013

In collaboration with the ElevenLabs Impact Programme and The Scott Morgan Foundation, endjin created a professional voice clone of Paul, using hours of recordings of internal meetings from our archives, and Paul's public videos; we did this in the hope that it would help Paul communicate with his family, friends and colleagues as his condition progressed, but Paul passed away before he could make use of it. To honour his memory, and with the permission of his family, we have used the voice clone to narrate all of his blog posts for posterity.

We hope you enjoy reading and listening to them, as much as Paul enjoyed creating them.

If you found any of Paul's work useful, please consider making a donation to MND Association or The Bikeability Trust in his memory.