Michael Bierut writes about Alan on Design Observer.
http://www.designobserver.com/archives/018011.html

I was deeply saddened by the death of Alan Fletcher.
He was my hero, my teacher.
An incredible man with an amazing inquisitive mind.

I remember my first junior days at Pentagram Design, London, 1989. An old guy, who looked like a gangster, was carefully sticking squashed coke cans onto his pin board. It puzzled me to see a grown man doing a child like act. And while I worked, I watched him across the open plan studio neatly cutting up paper with a fag in his mouth. Everything about him seemed considered. He was always deep in concentration. He was so playful graphically, he could turn letters into animals and make type dance, yet his persona seemed so serious.

Alan was a very generous designer. After several years I finally plucked up the courage to ask him for advice about my future and he willingly gave it in a simple, straightforward way. He seemed to be able to cut through the shit and come up with the ultimate idea, the clearest cleanest solution that could only be that.

I had always thought design was a young person's career. I found it reassuring that it could be a career for life. And he lived it 200%.

I am sure he designed himself a clever tombstone.

Thank you Alan, for all that you gave.
You are missed.

I have lived in Fletcher street for a year and every day when I see the road sign I think of Alan and smile.

Vince frost