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Trade-only signage specialist, Brownings, has looked back at its 100-year history, detailing a number of major pivots and changes in the industry throughout its existence
Hull-based sign-maker and supplier, Brownings, has celebrated its 100th year with a retrospective detailing the history of the company – revealing that it provided a very different offering when it was founded in 1925.
The company was established by founder Walter Willoughby Browning as Browning’s Dental Laboratory, primarily crafting dentures.
Following a decline in the denture market in the 1950s, the company pivoted to making medical training aids and practical joke products, using a material Browning invented and patented himself called Plastifol.
Plastifol was used to make fake wounds, bones, and novelty items, which were reportedly sold worldwide and remained in production until as recently as 2021.
The company increased its range of offerings in the ensuing decades. According to Brownings, it holds the accolade of being the first official UK distributor of Perspex since the 1950s – eventually expanding into items including machine guards and leaflet holders.
After Browning’s passing in 1968, the business changed hands several times until 1993, when Steve Crowley acquired the company from then owners, Thompson’s Plastics, and began reshaping it into a signage manufacturer.
Current managing director, Mike Gentle, joined the company in 2001, and in 2007 the company officially rebranded as Brownings, establishing itself as a trade-only signage specialist. Along with Gentle, production director Dean Harrison, and sales director, Richard Vincent, lead the business along with sales and marketing manager Bradley Robinson, who is helping build the next chapter.
The company manufactures all of its signage products in-house, with the aim of offering rapid turnarounds and bespoke capabilities to signage companies across the UK and beyond.
Robinson says: “Anonymity is our speciality. We manufacture for some of the best-known high street retailers and hospitality venues, but most end-users will never know we exist, and that’s exactly how our customers like it.”
“We’re just the current custodians of a great business. Hopefully we’ll see Brownings through to the next 100 years,” adds Vincent.
Brownings’ range of signage solutions includes MAGNWALL, a technology that allows for wireless, magnetic placement of lighting, shelves, and digital screens onto a tension fabric display. The system is designed to enable retailers and exhibition clients to reconfigure displays quickly, without the need for electricians or tools.
Alongside its arsenal of core signage solutions, Brownings also manufactures a range of complementary signage products including trough lights, snap frames, menu cases, Slimlock poster cases, and Posterlite snap frames – all of which are produced in-house.
