Bang up to date!

On the eve of its centenary year, Harrisons Signs opened the doors of its York-based factory to welcome both present and potential customers and to demonstrate how, despite its hundred-year heritage, it is keeping bang up to date. Val Hirst investigates

First founded as a one-man sign painting business in the City of York in 1909, Harrisons Signs has since moved a long way from its humble origins, whilst at the same time, skilfully avoiding the pitfalls that have befallen so many other similarly sized, family run sign businesses.

Richard Hunter, Harrison’s Signs’ Sales Director maintains that despite its traditional signwriting background, the company has continued to evolve in line with changing customer requirements and has gradually morphed into an all-round visual communications specialist, who now offers an exhibition design and build service, display expertise and digitally printed graphics, as well as bespoke signage. He explains however, that it was the company’s original founder, Charles Harrison, who first initiated this pioneering approach. Richard says: “We were actually the first company in the North East to introduce silk screen printing, as Charles Harrison was so enamoured with it, following a visit to the States, that he immediately decided to incorporate it into the company’s repertoire. In lots of ways, that set the standard for innovation and it’s something that we have enthusiastically pursued throughout the intervening years.”

Richard is the great grandson of Alfred Hunter, a ticket writer, who joined Harrisons Signs in 1928 and helped Charles Harrison to consolidate the business, before buying him out when the former reached retirement age.

He is thus the third generation of the Hunter family to work for the company, joining both his aunt - and Alfred’s grandaughter - June Robinson, who serves as Harrisons Signs’ Commercial Director, and two of her four sons.

But the concept of family extends much further than those who merely bear the Hunter name – Harrisons Signs has, and continues to be, staffed by a close knit group of people, some of whom have cheerfully devoted their whole working lives to the business. One of the veteran employees is David Harrison, who, despite the coincidence of his name, isn’t in fact related to Charles Harrison. Dave started work at Harrisons Signs as an apprentice signwriter in 1954 when he was just 15 and has only recently, and rather regretfully, hung up his paintbrush. Although his skill as a signwriter remains undiminished, he explains that he feels it’s time he stopped climbing up and down ladders! As someone who has seen fashions in signing come and go, Dave wholeheartedly supports the need for constant re-invention and is particularly happy about Harrisons Signs’ latest acquisition, an EFI VUTEk PV200 super wide format printer, which can be used in conjunction with both flexible and rigid substrates.

Richard escorts me to the newly extended print shop, which houses the machine and talks me through some of the samples that have already been produced on it, revealing a particularly dazzling graphic that has been output on to Dibond Butler Silver finish and another that has been produced on glass, both of which have already caught the eye of a very prestigious corporate client. He goes on to say that after considering various printer options, the company sought the advice of its regular material supplier, Robert Horne Sign & Display, who recommended the VUTEk PV200. He says: “A big point in the VUTEk’s favour was that, in addition to its undoubted capabilities, we were keen to buy the machine from a supplier that we already knew and trusted. Dave Filer, who usually looks after us and Tony Winterbottom, who runs Robert Horne’s Manchester-based digital demonstration suite, were both incredibly helpful and pulled out all of the stops to ensure that the installation went as smoothly as possible. So far, there have been no teething problems at all and we are really excited about the new business opportunities the printer will help open up.”
Richard continues: “We already have a full complement of wide format printers which really helped us to establish the digital print side of the business, but we realised that a machine of this calibre would enable us to service a lot more of our current print requirement in house. In the past, we have outsourced a lot of higher volume work, but now we’ll be able to accommodate it, whilst retaining full quality control and also maximising the potential for profit.”

He adds that he is delighted by the number of different effects the machine can offer, saying: “Before, we were restricted to printing on to vinyl and applying the resulting graphic wherever it was needed; now, because the printer uses UV curable inks, we can print outdoor durable graphics directly on to a wide range of different rigid materials and I believe this will help us to further extend the creative boundaries.”

In fact, so eager is the company to show both current and prospective clients what it can do, that it has recruited a new sales person specifically to promote its newly enhanced printing capability.

Jill Collier, who also organised the customer Open Day, is a seasoned sales professional, and although new to the sign industry, is confident that she will be able to persuade both local businesses and those that are located further afield, that Harrisons Signs have something unique to offer.

Richard explains that the company has already created quite a niche for itself in the North East Yorkshire area, providing all the sign and display requirements for larger local companies such as Nestlé, a long time client and McCain, as well as more modestly sized businesses. But its exhibition design and build service transcends local boundaries and is much in demand by those who appreciate Harrisons’ imaginatively innovative solutions to all of their creative problems.

“We like to feel that we are able to produce whatever is needed, no matter how outlandish it might seem at first glance,” confirms Richard, citing as an example the practical, yet aesthetically appealing, portable soup kitchen it produced for Baxter’s to use at an exhibition.

Harrisons Signs has, of course, its own in-house design department, complete with a staff of four, but a tour of the premises, which it took over in 1987 when it vacated its original city centre offices, reveals that this is complemented with a sizeable fabrication shop, which employs 23 people and an equally bustling woodworking shop, where four joiners are assembling a dizzying array of different structures.

However, the most interesting area is probably the exhibition warehouse, where dismantled stands jostle for space with every shape and size of exhibition furnishings and accessories. “We offer regular clients a storage service and try, whenever possible, to recycle some of the materials previously used to make their new stands,” says Richard, before leading me into another, smaller warehouse, which is filled with a host of different display materials, all of which also bear the company’s creative thumbprint.

“This is as much space as we have,” he says, “there is nowhere else to expand into.” When I point out that this might cause the company a small problem if business expands in the way that Richard would undoubtedly like it to, he laughingly responds that a sudden deluge of new work would be a problem that he would really enjoy dealing with.

In fact, as I take my leave, I feel that the only problem that Richard and his cousins really have to attend to in the not too distant future, is the creation of the next generation of little Hunters to ensure that the company continues to prosper for the next l00 years!

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