Designs on a digital future for Graham & Brown

Graham & Brown shocked east Lancashire in August last year when it announced plans to shut its manufacturing site at India Mill in Blackburn, ending 75 years of wallpaper making there.

The company revealed it was moving the production of traditional wallcoverings to “strategic” manufacturing partners in Europe and said the closure of the factory, which was “no longer fit for purpose”, was in response to “changing customer demand”.

That change had seen the market for traditionally-manufactured wallpaper contract.

In contrast, the demand for more environmentally-friendly, design-led and digitally-printed products in the online retail channel had continued to rise.

And that was taking the company, founded in Blackburn by two friends Harold Graham and Henry Brown in 1946, in a whole new direction of travel.

The factory closure by one of the county’s best-known businesses was part of a bold strategy focused on increased investment in digital capabilities at a new state-of-the
art, low carbon production site in Padiham.

Fast forward some 16 months and managing director Andrew Graham, grandson of Harold, is explaining with enthusiasm the digital transformation that has swept through the business and the thought process behind the evolution.

He is doing so whilst conducting a tour of the company’s design studio in Blackburn – a hive of artisan creativity where its highly-talented team are hand painting, line-drawing and embroidering to produce the bold patterns and images that make Graham & Brown’s
interiors stand out from the rest.

Fewer than 10 miles down the M65 on the Shuttleworth Mead Business Park, all this creativity is harnessed by the company at its digital ‘factory of the future’.

Here, in a high-tech environment, the two worlds of creative design and digital printing
come together to deliver bespoke wall coverings for a market that is increasingly attuned to
manufacturing on demand.

Part of a £3m investment programme, the digital printing site – which the company believes is the most advanced, sustainable wallcoverings production facility in Europe - uses 100 per cent renewable energy, solvent free inks and sustainably-sourced paper.

The £70m-turnover business, which became carbon neutral last year, has pledged to
become net zero by 2030.

The impressive array of technology includes two of the first machines of their type in the
industry, which Graham & Brown helped develop with the Italian manufacturer.

Andrew explains: “We have invested our money into the future of our industry, which is digital.

“Digital printing is the future of our business because we can create scale in our design.

"It is revolutionising the industry and allowing us to create art for your wall. It expands what you can produce.

It has also made it easier for its creatives to access the company’s archives of more than
50,000 designs, a valuable source of ideas built up over the decades.

“Digital unlocks that inspiration and our creativity,” Andrew adds.

Bespoke wall murals make up an increasing part of that creativity. They can be ordered online, printed exactly to the size the customer has indicated and shipped out in the UK in just three days. It’s a growing market that Andrew is keen to further exploit as the technology develops.

The 54-year-old explains: “I joined the business some 30 years ago. We were a manufacturing business then, now we are a design studio.

“We are also a digital-led business, not just in the way we manufacture but in the way we go to market. Our whole business model is based on how we can create and use technology to serve the customer.”

Wallpaper is the company’s heritage but Graham & Brown products today cover a whole
world of interior design and décor, with a wide range of wall coverings, paint, curtains, blinds
and home accessories.

Andrew says: “Like every evolution it feels slow at the start, then it becomes very fast because consumer tastes change so rapidly.”

He explains that the changing trends in the industry and the need to offer customers more
personalisation was first identified by the company’s leadership team.

He says: “We were listening to our customers, hearing their views, and that combined with
having a pretty entrepreneurial mindset, meant becoming an interiors brand was a compelling business case.

“As a business we have continually invested over the last eight decades. It felt very comfortable to make that leap of faith.”

The investment in digital began slowly some five years ago.

Andrew says: “At first we had to really understand how the technology could help the business, then 18 months ago we invested heavily.” He adds: “Everyone has done
an amazing job of adapting.

“We’ve some great young people in the business, a great leadership team with experience and we have recruited the best talent in marketing, design and digital development. Our message to all new starters is simple: bring your voice to the business.”

Andrew says the new direction taken has “energised the whole business” however it has not been without pain.

Some 100 staff lost their jobs as a result of the India Mill closure and the end of that
traditional manufacturing operation.

It was, he says, a difficult period, but adds the company offered those affected a raft of
support measures, including doing what it could to help everybody that wanted to work
gain alternative employment.

Today Graham & Brown remains very much a family affair. John Carter, grandson of
founder Henry Brown is chairman, and the company welcomed its fourth generation
to the business earlier this year when Andrew’s eldest daughter Iona, 27, joined
as community and social manager.

With a background in marketing and the fashion industry in London, she has taken the
lead in developing the business’s social media – a key role in its journey to becoming a global lifestyle brand.

It is set to be the next chapter for the business.

Andrew says: “Iona and team are working to get more people to know the brand and to grow it internationally. 

“We’re obviously well known in Lancashire and the UK but we believe we’ve a great opportunity in areas such as North America, our business there has grown 25 per cent year on year from a small base.”

The success of a recent pop-up store in London has also encouraged the business to make plans to open a permanent showroom in the capital.

Andrew says the changes haven’t been without their worries and anxieties but adds: “I’ve seen so much change over 30 years, it is all part of business and like our company founders we’re full of ambition.