The Interview

Thirty years in business is a sign of quality for firm

Thirty years in business is a sign of quality for firm

9th June 2011

Email: richard.maynard@newburynews.co.uk

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Richard Maynard talks to Paul and Chris Tebble, of Crescent Signs, a company celebrating its 30th anniversary

FOR any organisation to reach its 30th anniversary is a milestone, but for Newbury company Crescent Signs it is a special celebration as the firm is a family business.
Paul Tebble is now running the business set up by his father Chris in 1981. Chris is still with the business, although he is now winding down his involvement and preparing for a well-earned retirement, while Paul’s mother Jenny is also still very much involved.
Chris Tebble founded the company in his garden shed after being made redundant. “It was just any type of signage really,” he said. “It was pre-vinyl cut letters, so it was cutting acrylic letters, engraving signs, instrument panels and component parts, and general engraving work really.”
Over a period of about six years the business slowly expanded out of the shed, to various premises around Newbury, including Bartholomew Street and Bone Lane, before moving to the company’s current premises in Faraday Road, Newbury 24 years ago.
The company has seen huge advances in technology since it began. The hand-cut graphics of the early days have given way to computer engraving machines and vinyl cutting machines.
The expansion of Newbury since 1981 has had an obvious knock-on effect for Crescent Signs, with more businesses needing its services. “There have been times when the prosperity of Newbury, the constant change and companies moving have been great,” said Chris Tebble. “There have been opportunities to deal with all sorts of large companies, such as Panasonic, Sony, Quantel and Vodafone, either directly or indirectly, and we’ve moved on with the small companies that have set up in the town. There are signs that we made when I first started that are still being used now. It’s quite amazing. It’s testimony to the quality of the acylics.”
Demand has changed in the digital age and the company has adapted accordingly. “People are a little bit more wary about what they spend on that type of thing,” said Paul Tebble. “Certain materials have been developed that bring those costs down. Everyone is very conscious of cost at the moment.”
Demand is still constant, with larger companies companies still re-branding, although smaller high street businesses have found it a struggle. “That’s a shame, for us,” said Paul Tebble.
While Crescent Signs is predominantly a West Berkshire company, it has supplied signs for clients as far afield as Belgium, and its work can even be found inside inside a satellite currently orbiting the earth. It has undertaken some unusual and complex jobs over the years, including a key part on the earliest mobile phones produced by Panasonic when it was based in Thatcham, showcasing Crescent’s ability to undertake precision work as both an engraver and sign maker.
The company currently has a staff of six. The most it has ever employed is nine, in the pre-computerised age of the 1980s. Investment in computer equipment has always been important to the business.
Chris Tebble is now winding down from the company, or “fading off into the sunset,” as he put it. “After 30 years, it seems an appropriate time,” he added. For Paul Tebble, who joined the firm when he left school in 1987, at the age of 16, there is much reassurance that the company has been in business for three decades, and has survived three recessions. “We take a hit like everyone else does,” he said, “you just have to ride it out. We like to think that we have the background there of, for example the repeat business. We probably have more competition now than we ever had.”
The Tebbles believe that their great strength is the ability to produce any type of sign, apart from neon, from scratch, in-house. “It means it keeps it in our hands,” said Chris. “We always pride ourselves on a quick turn-around, and helping a client if we can, whether it’s a new one or an old one.
“And we’ve always invested in machinery and kept up with the times.”