2022

Ink, paper and passion 

Four years have passed since our move to St Annes, a quiet enclave of Bristol and a far cry from the hustle and bustle of St Pauls, our home for 63 years. 

Things move on and so does Taylor Brothers. Over the years we have invested wisely, acquiring the best equipment to be able to produce the best product. 2022 is no exception. Our investment this year has reached nearly £500,000 purchasing the latest pre press, digital and wide format technology. Digital print has been a huge growth area for us and continues to go from strength to strength. 

Obviously there has been some disruption with the pandemic. We never could have predicted that only a few years after we moved we would be faced with the biggest challenge of our tenure. Yes it was tough. The strangest of situations with a factory full to the rafters with beautiful print but sadly nowhere to send it. 

We are now at full speed again continuing to build and grow the oldest printers in the South West – 190 years and counting – and the story continues…   

2024 

Investment, the future, people & technology

Wide format is a huge market and presents us with an opportunity of natural growth, a new HP Latex wide format printer was installed and is now in full production servicing the creative sector. A new Duplo booklet maker was installed in our bindery to compliment our existing machine and increase productivity.

People, we consider ourselves a multicultural and diverse company, investing in the next generation is a vital part of our long term strategy both in education and people. We have a long-standing and collaborative working relationship with local universities and colleges and reaching out to UWE (The University of the West of England) was a natural choice when looking to bolster our reprographics department. It was refreshing to see so many graduates interested in Taylor Brothers and the print industry as a whole. Through this process we now have an MA graduate working for us who is invaluable member of the team in our wide format and reprographics department.

We visited Germany for DRUPA, the largest print exhibition in the world and came back full of enthusiasm for the long-term future of print. Digital technology will play a huge part in this journey so will we continue to invest, giving our customers the highest quality product, produced as efficiently as possible with the same care & attention as we have done for over 190 year`s.

Exciting times ahead.

As a carbon balanced printer we offset our annual emissions with World Land Trust.

BRITISH PRINTING INDUSTRIES FEDERATION

The BPIF is the UK's leading trade association for print. Amplifying the voices of print professionals to decision makers and supporting businesses through everything from health and safety compliance to apprenticeship training, we are always at the heart of the print industry.

To learn more, visit britishprint.com.

Taylor Brothers are proud to be members.

Our History

Taylor Brothers occupies a unique position as Bristol’s oldest printing company. It was established in the 1830’s selling general commercial printing services with premises on Baldwin Street in the heart of the city and was incorporated as Taylor Brothers Bristol Limited in the 1860’s. The company has always remained in the centre of the city, close to its all-important customers.

It is reasonable to ask why has it survived and prospered over such a remarkably long period of time when so many other printers on the city have disappeared? 

One possible reason is that throughout the vast majority of its long and at times turbulent history it was family owned and run. Five generations of the Taylor Family have steered it through numerous changes in technology, wars, depressions and recessions. Family values of loyal commitment coupled with careful financial management, have seen it though the difficult times and the upheavals.

Without doubt the most dramatic occurrence in the company’s history was the destruction of its period premises in Broad Weir right in the heart of the city. It fell victim, together with the occupants of a nearby bus and a number of passers-by to the last daylight bombing raid on Bristol by the German Luftwaffe on August 24th 1942. The extracts from the company’s diary and a family letter give a very human account of the subsequent hours and days after the event.

In a similar fashion the cutting for the Bristol Evening post from 1955 talks about the company’s brave move after the bombing, via temporary rented premises in Philadelphia Street, to its new purpose-built factory, home until 2018, at the end of Wilder Street, St Paul’s. This was a new start which coincided with huge changes in technology, particularly the move away from letterpress printing to offset lithography, reflecting the demands of the modern commercial print market after the second world war.

There is no doubt that one of the other major reasons Taylor Brothers has enjoyed such longevity is due to the loyalty and commitment of its highly skilled staff over the generations and the special relationships that somehow only seem to exist in a family business.  2018 was a momentous year with the company selling its Wilder St site, and the last generation of Taylors to be involved with the business, Charles and Nick who owned and managed the company from the early 1990’s taking retirement. In September, key senior staff members who had played such a major part in shaping the company’s future took their opportunity to chart their own destiny when ownership of the company changed through a management buyout. This coincided with the new team headed up by MD Nigel Millen, planning and executing the move to its stunning new premises in Chapel Way, St Anne`s in the same month. 

Moving with the times and taking advantage of new technology has also been a huge part of the company’s philosophy. The ability of the company to respond to our customers’ demands has been crucial. This cannot be achieved without investment and adaptation. The last few years have been some of its most successful with digital print now a cornerstone of its services alongside high quality lithography. 

So, an exciting new future beckons and a new history of a different kind will be written but hopefully underpinned with the same business values and principles that have served it and its customers so well.