Images Digital Edition March 2019

www.images-magazine.com MARCH 2019 images 33 DECORATOR PROFILE F rom an early age, Stuart Morris was driven by a desire to paint and create. He has produced all kinds of colourful and vivid work, from paintings to prints, often large-scale, which have featured in exhibitions in London and Scotland and overseas. However, he also has a head for business and, for the past 39 years, has built up one of the UK’s leading specialists in designing and printing textiles. Called simply Stuart Morris, it supplies a diverse variety of products for schools, retail and other companies, as well as leading designers and illustrators, from its base in Hadleigh, near Ipswich, in south Suffolk. And the catalyst for this success? A tea towel. Father’s footsteps After studying art and design, including a masters degree at Leicester, Stuart became a lecturer in the subject first in Leeds and then in Colchester, Essex, while also working as a freelance textile designer – following in the footsteps of his father who helped to develop the historic fabric and wallcoverings collection of Blendworth. He set up his first print studio in a former apple store in an old maltings in the Suffolk village of Stratford St Mary where he worked on creating hand-printed textiles and canvases. Everything changed, however, when he was asked to design and print a tea towel of a church in the nearby village of Langham, just over the border in Essex. Its success led to other commissions, including a tea towel for Colchester Castle and another for a reader offer in the regional daily paper, the East Anglian Daily Times . The readers loved it and this in turn led to more tea towels for newspaper groups from Norfolk to Kent to Hampshire over the following years. Innovation and creativity The company’s current base in Hadleigh is split between two adjoining factories on an industrial estate, plus a studio in Rose Chapel, a converted 19th-century Methodist chapel, where Stuart continues to produce his own work. It is not just him working there anymore: the workforce has grown to 16 permanent staff, which rises to 22 at busy times. Some of the team have been with him for many years, including illustrator and chief designer Diz Andrews who joined 22 years ago. This was around the time that the company took on the first of its two Hadleigh factories, called Riverside Print Studio. The second, the bigger Hilltop Print Studio, was added 10 years ago to allow the company to provide high-volume screen printing. The first unit is home to screen printing, screen making, sewing, digital printing and an art department with three designers. “We have a real emphasis on the innovation and creativity of our design department,” Stuart comments. “Our ethos is to combine The move to digital printing has been absolutely key painting and illustration with the technical support of computer-aided design. With our experienced artists and illustrators, we are not just offering a printed product. We are able to design it for them.” Since starting up in 1980, the company has expanded way beyond just tea towels although Stuart says “the emphasis is on high-quality crafted textile products finished in the UK”. Its printed products include aprons made from heavyweight cotton drill and shopping bags in cotton calico, canvas and jute as well as silk scarves and ties and other clothing that can be customised through printing or embroidery. These are complemented by printed promotional mugs, ceramic or earthenware, which are produced elsewhere. A core part of its customer base is retail, with Stuart Morris producing personalised printed textile products for shops and online retailers as well as working with many designers on bringing their visions to life on fabric, from bags and tea towels to oven gloves The company now employs four seamstresses to cope with demand