Page 34 - Print21 magazine Sep-Oct 2022

Printer Profile
AFI Branding
celebrates
30 year milestone
Australia’s largest fabric printer, AFI Branding, turns 30 this year, growing from a two-man band in 1992 to become the innovative, high-tech IVE-owned business it is today. Colleen Bate reports.
Initially named Auto Flags International, AFI was started by father and son team Al and Glenn Watson, with Glenn now managing director of
the business.
The company was founded to sell
custom flag holders designed to fix to the outside of a car, featuring a small, detachable flag to be waved at whatever event the drivers were heading to. While the flag holder, brainchild of Al, may not have taken off as well as expected, the screen-printing side of the business certainly did.
“At that time, I was on a competitive sailing path and looking for somewhere to make some money and still have the flexibility to do the training and the yacht racing that I wanted to do, so coaxed by my dad, I began to get involved in the business, learning how to screen print the flags,” says Glenn Watson.
interests at the time – as well as being pastor of a church, he ran a cleaning business and a cattle farm, so in 1996, decided to hand over the business to Glenn, only working at AFI from time to time.
He didn’t start off fully engaged in the business. He says, “Admittedly, I wasn't that focused on the business
in the early days, but three years later when I was married with a baby on the way, I began to take it more seriously. During this time, I made some big mistakes and nearly went broke. It was a tough season, but I was lucky to have some good people around to teach me the business fundamentals, and to ensure our business stayed afloat.”
Watson was then exposed to international business when he embarked on a trip to South Africa to purchase Bowheads from a supplier over there. The Bowhead flags, says Watson, were a good fit for AFI’s offerings, and are still being sold by the company today.
Above
Accelerating business: AFI’s ReFrame system in a Myer store
Founders: (l-r) Al and Glenn Watson, AFI Branding
Watson says that at one point, the Bowhead flag sales represented a significant percentage of AFI’s business with annual sales of this product exceeding a million dollars.
“The trip to South Africa was
the first time we had to deal with suppliers outside Australia, and, as a result of connections made from this enterprise, we went on to visit Fespa in Europe in the early 2000s, which was certainly not being visited by any of our close competitors at that time,” he explains.
Over its three decades in print, AFI has serviced Australia’s retail, events and exhibitions industries including the Commonwealth Games – both 2006 and 2018 – among its highlight projects.
“The 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games was a fantastic multi-million-dollar contract that went exceptionally well. All of a sudden, we had some money to invest into the business
Al also had other business
34 Print21 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022
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