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James Turner, graphics and signage manager at luxury department store chain Harvey Nichols, has got a problem. The royal warrant – essentially a regal seal of approval – given to the retailer by the Queen Mother, expires at the end of this year, which means that the company must take her crest off of its bags and stationery.

This will leave a huge design void, but thanks to the wonders of print, Turner has come up with a creative solution. He intends to deploy foil blocking, which he believes will elevate the appearance of the bags and give them a touch of quality. “The Harvey Nichols logo is simple and timeless but it’s quite plain. Foil blocking will give the logo that extra element,” he explains.

The beauty of Turner’s role is that, as with the logo and the memorable window displays he gets to work on, he is given free rein to be as creative as he likes – as long as this fits within a fairly stringent budget. Turner works alongside a buying co-ordinator, who deals with items such as carrier bags and packaging, but his primary task is company branding – ranging from business cards and invitations to store events and sourcing large-format graphics for the firm’s chain of stores.

He comes from a graphic design background, his previous job was at mail order company OKA, but he says that at Harvey Nichols, he is given much more creative freedom. However, his time at OKA served him well because it gave him an insight into the print industry. He was heavily involved in the production of the firm’s mail-order catalogues, performing tasks such as signing off proofs and press-passing work.

“It was a great experience for me,” says Turner. “As a designer, it’s an advantage to have good print knowledge, because it gives you a wider sense of what can be achieved.”

Print partners
Another great help for Turner has been the firm’s print partners, and in particular Colchester-based print manager Leanprint. “I like their philosophy. They don’t try and screw the printers down and they tell me what they are getting out of the deal.”

Leanprint’s mission statement, according to the company website, is to “deliver real cost savings that benefit the client and the supplier, making Leanprint the natural choice for companies that support the principles of fair trading”.

It’s this ethos that won Turner over as he feels that there are a lot of print brokers out there earning footballers’ salaries, primarily because of the way that they treat their suppliers.

“Leanprint look after us and have excellent customer service. They’ve taken us to the printers and shown us how different processes work. They even put together a print bible for us, which is very useful. They’re very genuine and upfront and you don’t feel like you’re being ripped off.”

Although he admits that the firm is driven by price, “we’d rather pay that little bit extra and get it right.” Therefore, he has built up an unofficial roster of “printers we trust and like working with”, which includes the likes of Leanprint and Enfield-based Colourset.

These lucky few get to quote on each job and, after all the prices come in, Turner decides where the work will be placed. That’s not to say he’s unwilling to take a chance on someone that hasn’t produced work for the firm before. Although he says he has been let down badly in the past, so he would prefer to go with a tried and trusted supplier. One successful addition to Harvey Nichols’ fray is Swanley-based Formgraphics. The company approached Turner and after successfully completing a job, they are now asked to quote for
future commissions.

Cold calling
Despite Formgraphics’ success, printers should approach Turner with caution as one of his greatest bugbears is cold calling. Although he concedes that due to the nature of the company, this kind of thing comes with the territory. “The Harvey Nichols name attracts a lot of attention and printers use the fact that they work for us as part of their own marketing, which can be an advantage to us as it gives us a good negotiating tool.”

Potential suitors should also note the key attributes that Turner is looking for in his suppliers – namely competitive pricing, quality, reliability and high levels of customer service.

“We do a lot of quick turnaround work and often rely on our printers to do things like press-passing. They are very good and tell us when it’s not right, and as a result we have a strong relationship with them.”
Getting everyone to quote for jobs helps to keep prices lean, but this can at times be prohibitive.

“There’s a company that we used to use and we really like, but they always come in too high for us, which is annoying because we can’t use them,” explains Turner.

One firm that regularly produces work for Turner is south London-based McKenzie Clark, which has been employed to do the last half-dozen sales campaigns because they always do a great job, according to Turner. Sales are crucial periods for firms such as Harvey Nichols, so it’s imperative that promotional material is installed on schedule. This is especially the case with the winter sale, which kicks off on Boxing Day. The install of graphics takes place on Christmas Eve, so Turner works closely with the person heading up McKenzie Clark’s team to ensure everything runs smoothly and is in place for the opening day.

Creating window graphics for events such as sales, is one of the best parts of the job because they’re “a massive canvas and you can come up with something nice”. A large part of his time is taken up producing this kind of large-format graphics, some of which are printed digitally to keep costs down. He says that his biggest enemy when it comes to creating window displays is the weather.

“In the winter, there is less light and so we might use a back-lit vinyl to create a glowing effect. But in the summer, when we normally use a white vinyl with a bold striking pattern, reflections on the windows caused by the sun can be a nightmare.”

But Turner enjoys tackling challenges and constantly strives to produce striking imagery. To this end, he recently pulled together a large-format advert for the store’s menswear department, which featured lots of designer brand names jumbled together in a pattern. This was printed onto a thin material into which wires and circuits had been stitched, which allowed certain brand names to be lit up in sequence. Turner says that he wasn’t quite happy with the finish because the stitching was visible but he loved the concept and is considering trying something similar again.

Managing expectations
Another important part of Turner’s job is managing the expectations of other people inside the firm. “We deal with so many people within the company who don’t know about print techniques and sometimes they’re disappointed with the finished result because it’s different from what came off the laser print or what they’d envisaged. It’s down to us to understand what they want and to inform them of what they’re going to get.”

He cites his problems reproducing the company’s brand colours to underline his point. “Our colour scheme is black, white and grey, which is quite simple to achieve, but we sometimes have problems with black and we get the occasional brown instead.”

Turner predicts that print will play a huge part in the firm’s future. “As a company, we will probably move into selling more stuff online. However, print is very important to us and it’s always going to be a massive part of our business – at least until everyone stops shopping in stores.”

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HARVEY NICHOLS
• In 1813, Benjamin Harvey opened a linen shop in a terraced house on the corner of Knightsbridge and Sloane Street in London before passing the business on to his daughter in 1820, on the understanding that she go into partnership with Colonel Nichols selling oriental carpets, silks and luxury goods, alongside the linens
• The existing Knightsbridge store was opened in the 1880s, with the rear section added in 1932
• Harvey Nichols was bought by Debenhams in 1919. In 1985, it became part of the Burton Group before being acquired in 1991 by Dickson Concepts, an international retailer and distributor based in Hong Kong. Following a listing on the London Stock Exchange, it returned to private ownership when it was bought by Dr Dickson Poon
• The company opened its first store outside London in Leeds in 1996, with a Birmingham branch opening in 2001, an Edinburgh store in 2002, one in Manchester in 2003 and shops in Dublin and Hong Kong in 2005
• A recent report suggested that sales for the financial year ending March 31 will be around the £200m mark – up by about 5% – with profits expected to be around £15m (a 35% increase)

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CASE STUDY: DUBLIN STORE
With a new store opening in Dublin, the firm needed a complete sale package, including in-store signage and window banners, within three months.
“I’m lucky because our sale signage is not standardised throughout the company and so I get to come up with a brand new concept for each store, to reflect its own identity,” explains Turner.
Patterns were used to define the three main areas – womenswear, menswear and accessories. A sale identity was created by literally ripping the letters S-A-L-E out of the Harvey Nichols logo.
“It was a very bold sale package,” says Turner. “We need to get the sale message across, but we prefer to do it in a less conventional manner.”
The job was a real joint effort, with print manager Leanprint tasked with looking after the print, colour management, press-passing and delivery of the interior signage and Dublin-based Redmond Signs & Display printing the window banners.
“Due to time constraints we had to put a certain amount of faith in our suppliers to manage the colour and press-pass but they did a great job and the first sale was a big success,” says Turner.
The whole package stands out really well and other store managers now want their sale packages re-designed,” says Turner.