Copy of Our Story

 

Anne and Graham Hollway have owned this business for upwards of 30 years.

They started as a Prontaprint franchise on the Hagley Road in Edgbaston and over the years the centres grew their reputation from a server to the small business with copy shop image to become an established and recognised professional design and print centre. The turnover grew, the print room moved into the basement and the art department was formed. Linotronic phototypesetting was introduced and the standards continued to rise.

We purchased a second franchise in 1988 and Prontaprint City Centre was born! The turnover rocketed in its first year! This was achieved by Graham going out selling. Key accounts opened were The Copthorne Hotel, The Grand Hotel, The Midland Hotel, Sabre Leasing, Arthur Andersen and KPMG, none of which would have come into a Prontaprint Store. At the end of their first year we won the Prontaprint award for ‘Highest growth in its first year’.

Applemacs were invented and the art department became a graphic studio. AB Dick printing machines were replaced by Heidelbergs and the grey and white copier became digital black and white along with full colour digital rip printing.

We realised that we had outgrown our franchise and managed to extract ourselves from it, becoming InkTree in 2008.

Times move on and it became apparent that the focus was on us visiting our customers and a retail shop was becoming a redundant and expensive commodity.

When the lease expired at City Centre we therefore amalgamated both shops under one roof at Edgbaston in 2012.

In 2017 we were offered a marvellous new opportunity to take over a signage business, Brindley Design and Print. We decided to move from Edgbaston at the end of our lease and move into our current premises at 95 Moseley Street, Digbeth where we can now offer our customers a full range of design, printing and signage products from an industrial unit.

It has been a long journey but we understand that business has every changing needs and we need to move with the times and to continue to change with our customers’ requirements.

The future is bright and we are ready for it!