51_N Smith.qxp_Grid 17/01/2025 19:34 Page 1
Behind The Scenes
INTO THE FOLD
N Smith really are the Willy Wonkas of cardboard engineering. In the last year alone, just within our sector, the Midlands-based company has built a Roman chariot and full size Doric columns for The Henries, a Mr McGregor’s Garden set for The Retas, a giant pen and enormous card for PG Live and the PG Pub for last year’s Spring Fair, all out of cardboard. But even by their own high standards, the maestros are raising the cardboard bar even higher for this year’s show, commissioned by Hyve, Spring Fair organisers, to create a parade of shops to form the Hall 3 Buyers Lounge, shopfronts for the entrance ways, giant cards, post boxes as well as a double bay-windowed pub for its own stand (3K41), that it will be sharing with PG. flexibility and growth potential, meaning we could offer bespoke FSDUs and Point of Sale as well as cardboard box manufacturing. Pretty much all the profits we made in those early days we invested back into the business, which has stood us in good stead, enabling us to further invest in new machinery,” reveals Kerry, a case in point being the £1.7 million investment in the Agfa Onset digital printer a couple of years ago. To add some scope to the immensity of the operation, N Smith uses over 10 million square metres of cardboard every year, the equivalent space of 1,400 of the company’s beloved West Bromwich Albion football stadium!
It was working for a company that produced Easter egg boxes that gave Kerry Tyers the cardboard bug, but it was finding kindred spirits when she joined N Smith, cardboard box company whose origins date back to the start of the 20th Century, that really secured her place as the boxing queen. “My daughter, selecting which GCSEs to take, asked me whether I thought I would be Above left: Just some of the props N Smith made for the Ancient selling cardboard boxes when I grew up. Not Roman-themed Henries 2024. Right: Kerry Tyers and Steve Wilkinson in front of The Emporium that N Smith made for Autumn Fair. really, but I am so glad it happened,” Kerry Below: The rough plan for the Hyve Street shopfronts at Spring Fair. confessed to PG, who, along with four fellow directors – Nigel Reynolds, Steve Wilkinson, Gary Hogg and Linz Cavanagh - staged a management buyout of the business back in 2015. “We didn’t know how the business would develop, but investing in two digital printing machines gave us more
Far left: N Smith’s Kerry Tyers and Nigel Reynolds on their stand at PG Live with some of their creations. Above: Nigel Reynolds (right) and Steve Wilkinson at the recent GCA Conference with a giant Thinking of You Week card, pen and post box N Smith made. Left: Having traded since 1901, N Smith now uses over 10 million square metres of cardboard manufacturing boxes, FSDUs, PoS and other packaging needs.
While Kerry explains that cardboard boxes remain the “bread and butter” of the business, “our digital print work is gaining ground fast” supplying many leading retailers and brands with bespoke creations. However, it is their bespoke creations of a very different kind that will be gracing the halls of the NEC during Spring Fair. On the back of creating The Emporium ‘shop window’ for Autumn Fair, that was used for window display workshops, for Spring Fair the N Smith team are to build a ‘Hyve High Street’ of different shops to form the Buyers Lounge in Hall 3, as well as ‘shopfronts’ for the entrance ways relevant to each hall. And to mark the show’s 75th anniversary there will be two giant birthday cards, featuring designs by The Art File. One of which will be positioned in the Piazza while the other in the GCA Lounge. Alongside these will be a post box and a display of free cards which attendees are invited to write to someone and then pop in the post box. Kerry remembers back to the days when the N Smith stands at trade shows just used to be a pile of cardboard boxes. “Then we got to know the team at PG and things started to change and the requests to make various items became increasingly challenging, but we love it, as it means we can show our skills to a very special, creative industry!”
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 51