Dreaming big with Ginger Root

We often talk about diversifying and adding another string to your bow throughout these pages, so we are always on the look out for companies which demonstrate just this. After only four years in business, design and print agency Ginger Root invested in a garment printing company, but before I get into that, director Anthony Scoon tells me about his journey into the world of print.

“I finished university and worked in recruitment for a year but found it wasn’t for me, so I started working for a small manufacturing company of about 20 people,” he says, continuing: “I was there for seven and a half years and ended up running it for the owner. I then moved on into health clubs for four years within sales and marketing.

“After that I started helping a couple of small businesses with their sales and marketing, and I ended up meeting one of my business partners, Andy Middleton, through mutual friends. We worked on a few projects together and decided we were on the same page. He’d been in print for 25 years by that point, so he had a really strong background in it, and I understood the business and manufacturing sides, so we decided to throw all our chips in together and start Ginger Root.”



Whilst Scoon, Middleton, and a graphic designer started off the business, Ginger Root is now run by a small team of directors and has twelve members of staff. Scoon says: “We brought in a third director to the company, Alex Crabtree, a year and a half ago. He’s a designer by trade and has brought in a lot of business.”

From its early days of producing business cards and business stationery, Ginger Root is now a fully-fledged design and print agency that is able to offer marketing, print, design, signage, web, and most recently, clothing. “Anything and everything,” Scoon jokes about the company’s wide-stretching capabilities.

Building success

With ambition to be “the leading design, print, and signage agency in Nottingham”, its work with the University of Nottingham is certainly a big step towards this. Ginger Root produced wallpaper and window graphics for a new building that is a crucial part of the UK manufacturing sector.

Scoon explains: “The University of Nottingham bought a brand new Advanced Manufacturing Building and we’ve done a lot of work with the Faculty of Engineering, so they asked us to design a large amount of wallpaper and window manifestations for all the internal walls. We designed, manufactured, and fitted around 350sq m of wallpaper and about a mile of window manifestations.



“We’ve also designed and printed customised folders for an orthodontist using foil printing. For England Golf we created banners and workbook training packs for their winter training programme, which were used all across the UK. For a local radio station sponsoring the Robin Hood Marathon, we created branded deckchairs, gazebos, inflatables, banners, and signs.”

Ginger Root relies on its armoury of printing and finishing equipment to enable it to meet the needs of its customers, both efficiently and to a high standard. Currently the company operates in 185.8sq m of production space, but Scoon says there is room to expand this to 325.2sq m. Equipment includes a wide-format printer from HP, small-format printer from Xerox, wide-format laminator, creasing and folding machines, guillotine, drill, plotter, gluer, wiro binder, and foiler.



“We are lucky in that we have worked with suppliers on an ongoing basis, so we’ve done a lot of research into what is the best out there in order to get the best machines for the company,” adds Scoon.

Whilst still being a relatively new company, Ginger Root is already taking steps to expand its offering—a smart move for ensuring longevity in the industry. Scoon explains: “We decided to invest in Pulse Custom Wear following an increase in demand for printed clothing. As demand for customised clothing is growing, there has been a real uplift in construction, retail, and hospitality industries, and that’s having a good knock on effect for printed workwear and merchandise.



“Pulse Custom Wear has been around since 2012 and we’ve been working on a number of projects together. By working together and operating under one space, both companies are able to provide more services to our client database, and we are able to work more efficiently.”

Clothing connection

Ginger Root has a clear sense of its values and it centres around giving the best service to its clients. “As a business, our key values are to be resourceful, creative, fun, passionate, and to provide amazing service through everything we do,” comments Scoon, adding: “We champion people, imagination, form, and function. We encourage innovative and creative minds to dream big and inspire those around them to deliver exciting products with exceptional service, whilst never losing sight of the finest details.


“We’re in a great position as we’re able to produce everything in-house from small business cards to window vinyls and signage, which means we can provide much quicker, smoother, and cost-effective service for clients. Our clients are dealing with one person. If they want to launch a marketing campaign they can come to us, we can drive everything through for them and create it with print in mind. The amount of times you receive something and they haven’t thought about print as they’ve created it, whereas we create something beautiful and practical, which is important.”


Expansion of the company is on the horizon, with more staff to be added to all departments. Scoon says: “If we can put two to three more people in each of those departments over the next two years, we would double the size of the company. Over the next five years we want to increase that further, as well as increase design and production capability. We want to be seen as a strong force within the creative world looking after small and large companies with all their brand and digital needs, whilst still maintaining the ability to produce in-house.”

With a growing list of high-profile clients, fantastic in-house printing capabilities, and an ambitious attitude, I am sure Ginger Root will continue to be a strong force in the industry and perhaps an inspiration for change.

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