Top of the Premier League

New products

2023 is a big year for Premier Framing’s Gary Townsend as he celebrates his business’s 25th anniversary.

The company has two branches and a flourishing online division. The main base is in Norwich, where the workshop is housed, along with a mirror showroom, with Cambridge providing a second retail outlet.

Gary had just returned from travelling when he landed a job at the Norwich shop in 1997 – and he has not looked back since, taking over the business in 2011.

Gary works very closely with his colleague Sarah Hamment who oversees the general day-to-day running of the retail side of the business. Having attended Norwich Art School and worked at Premier Framing as a Saturday job, Sarah joined the business full-time in 2000.

Further to her love for the creative arts, Sarah learnt the skills of picture framing and discovered sharing these ideas to assist customers with their own framing projects was her calling.

Sarah loves working with customers. Understanding the context of where a piece of art will hang, and then advising accordingly. Sarah says: “It is vital to welcome every customer with an open mind, it is easy to have pre-conceived ideas but we have such a diverse range of customers with such a diverse range of framing requirements.

Sarah is seeing a big demand for all shades of grey at the moment but on the back of the popularity of oak furniture, she is also seeing a surge in requests for natural contemporary oak frames. Some of Sarah’s favourite mouldings include Larson-Juhl’s Colosseum range and also the Larson-Juhl Dresden range. Sarah adds:

Sarah has overseen and advised on literally thousands of customer framing orders over the past 24 years, but particularly memorable commissions include the 3D David Bowie bust cast shown above right. Sarah particularly enjoys a box frame challenge and designing intricate mount designs to create unique framed pieces: “Demand has risen over the years for much more complex framing projects. The size of pieces we now frame are frequently larger and more challenging than before. At Premier Framing though, there are no limits, you name it, we frame it!”

“I have learnt to expect the unexpected! Customers’ tastes vary so much more than they used to. There are so many more interesting product ranges and customers are embracing the expansive choices now available.” “I love working with area sales manager John Green. He is a lovely chap who always ensures we have the latest moulding ranges and of course the best price available!”

Mister Frameman

Mister Frameman is a specialist conservation framing department within Premier Framing servicing galleries, interior designers and collectors across the UK. They have a large number of clients in and around London and offer a weekly collection and delivery service with its own van whilst working with Fragilistics to cover other parts of the country.

Mister Frameman was launched in 2007 after Gary visited an exhibition in London and heard the gallery staff complaining about their framer. After a chat and subsequent email conversations Gary soon became the framer of choice for two large Shoreditch galleries. On the back of this, and an ever-growing reputation on the Urban Art Forum, Gary was well positioned to service the explosion in the urban art scene. He comments: “It is always exciting to see the rare and valuable pieces such as original Banksy works, Harland Miller and Damien Hirst amongst others. We must have framed well over 1000 Banksy pieces alone over the course of the last 15 years!”

Premier Shirt Framing

Premier Shirt Framing is a web-based shirt framing service offering bespoke high end, high quality at a fair price. They had always had a good number of shirt framing orders through the shops, particularly in Norwich, but after extensive research Gary says: “I could see that there were a number of online framing companies offering a shirt framing service but not at a very high level. Materials used were cheap and poor quality and the designs were basic with little room for bespoke designs. With a top of the range mountcutter and the knowledge and skill set of Matt Johns we soon started pushing the boundaries of what could be achieved.”

They have worked with Norwich City FC for a number of years. They have also framed winners’ medals and shirts from football European Championships, personal pieces for a number of high-profile players and worked closely with Boreham Wood FC and Tottenham Hotspur too.

The Premier team also supports a number of local charities including On The Ball and Keeping Abreast as well as framing for several exhibitions and personal pieces for legendary pop artist Colin Self who lives in Norwich.

Premier Vinyl

Going forward, Gary has ambitious plans to grow the online business with more specialist websites, with Premier Vinyl Framing launching imminently. Gary explains: “With album covers now an established artform, we are predicting strong demand for vinyl framing. It may also be a framed number one from someone’s birthday or another key date.”

To celebrate the business’s 25th anniversary, Gary says: “We will be making improvements to the Norwich store with a full redecoration and new entrance doors, we are planning on running monthly promotions for customers and hosting special events to mark occasions such as Easter, King Charles’ Coronation and the Rugby World Cup…It is also my 50th birthday in June so it promises to be quite a year!”

Premier’s hall of fame

The Premier team is a very loyal one with very low staff turnover:

Sarah Hamment (Head of retail) – 24 years Joe Kerry (Workshop manager) – 25 years Dale Potter (Conservation specialist) – 25 years Steven Bray (Head of assembly) – 13 years Laura Williamson (Accounts) – 15 years Mostyn Clarke (Cambridge manager) – 8 years Matthew Johns (Premier shirt framing guru) – 10 years Shaun Smith (Conservation assembly) – 17 years Simon Bowler (Customer advisor) – 7 years Seamus Tevenan (Mounting specialist) – 9 years