ImagesMagUK_Digital_Edition_Feb18

DECORATOR PROFILE www.images-magazine.com 26 images FEBRUARY 2018 Despite nearly losing everything, Alex Greig of Supreme Screen is firmly back on track to living his screen printing dream E ighteen-hour days are not unheard of for 30-year-old Alex Greig since he sold his auto. Using a manual press to fulfil his many orders is, he admits, tough going, but it won't be for long. A series of building problems might have temporarily financially crippled his business, but he says he'll get the auto back in a year or two. Such is his relentless optimism and drive, it's impossible to imagine anything other than him succeeding in his plans. Alex started off ten years ago in a band called MaLoKai. Based in Manchester for ease of touring, the band needed some merch for fans, but Alex thought the prices were quite expensive. "I thought I'd look on YouTube, see how the T-shirts were made, because I'm interested in how things are made and learning different things. I said to the guys, 'Look, how about I take fifteen hundred quid from the band funds, buy a little table top press and learn how to print?'" He quickly convinced them, pointing out it would only take two or three runs of T-shirts before it had paid for itself, bought some equipment and got learning. "I set up in my basement and started printing T-shirts for the band. Then, over the next six to 12 months a lot of people were getting wind of the fact that I was printing shirts and just started asking if I could print some for them." His business, Unbroken Print, was born. After six months, realising he needed better equipment, he found Dave Roper and bought a secondhand six-colour Rototex manual press. He moved into an old shed and spent the next 18 months printing by hand, until he became so busy that an automatic screen printing press was the next obvious step. Talking the talk After Dave Roper had been through the various options, Alex gave the bank a call. "Amazingly, after an hour and a half phone call, they gave me the credit for it. No business plan or anything, just one phone call. The guy said, 'How do you plan on paying this back?' so I just talked. At the end of the call he said, "Well, you seem to have a real idea of where you want to go, and you're very passionate – we'll give you the money.' The next day, the money was in the bank so I ordered my auto." Unbroken and unbowed Alex Greig has split his business into two companies: Supreme Screen and Unbroken Print The M&R Diamondback and M&R Radicure conveyor dryer were delivered and he moved into new premises, and Unbroken Print continued to grow each month. The equipment was, he says, great. "We never had a problem with them. And Dave Roper is amazing, he's been with us since day one." When customers started asking about business cards and flyers, Alex decided to start offering digital paper printing services. "This is where things started to get a bit messy," he admits. He was 25, business was going well and he wanted more equipment. "I took out a bunch of leases, which were very expensive – for some reason the banks just kept giving me credit." His wife was pregnant with their fifth child, the band had come to an end and so they decided to move back to Wales from Manchester. They found a building in the centre of Bridgend, but just as they were about to move in, the landlord found some issues with it that would take a couple of months to fix. The more work that was done on the building, however, the more problems came up. After 18 months, they pulled the plug on it. But they had £100,000 worth of machinery doing Everything is printed manually on the M&R Sidewinder