“A typical day will always start by walking and feeding the dogs who both then sit under or around my desk in the office or try and get constant attention from any of the staff willing,” says Sarah Smith, managing director of Dynamic Print, when asked about the day-to-day operations of her business. This answer creates quite the picture for Dynamic Print, which is quite a unique business in the industry thanks to its historic finishing systems and unique paper options. While the business has a lot of history and interesting aspects, Smith, who bought the business back in 2018, has a long history in print and paper across a 37-year-long timeline. In order to find out more about how the business operates, how it stands out, and the experiences and changes Smith has brought, we delve into this “dynamic” print business. Making the Right Impression Having taken on Dynamic Print eight years ago, Smith had a lot to prove, especially when weathering the various storms faced by UK businesses in the past few years. Established in 1990 and based in Norfolk, the business specialises in hot foiling, embossing, debossing, die-cutting, and print. The company’s tag line is “be different, be dynamic” which can certainly be seen through the various products and services it provides. Providing a range of products such as wedding stationery, certificates, envelopes, and postcards/greeting cards, it’s the personal touch that clearly make Dynamic Print the company it is, with the website offering phone, Zoom, or ‘popping in for a coffee’ as ways to contact and collaborate with the business. Describing Dynamic Print, Smith says: “Our values are putting the customer first, making sure we have numerous processes in place to ensure consistent quality control, and when things go wrong we try and understand how this happened and put things into place to avoid this happening again. Our ethos is hands on, responsive service, communicating clearly with reliable quality – we try to hold every customer’s hand throughout the experience of working with us.” Dynamic Print was founded in 1989 by Barney Philips, who was actually one of Smith’s first customers when she was selling paper for James McNaughton Paper in Norwich. Philips later went on to become Dynamic Print offers several unique eco-friendly products, produced on vintage 1940s and 50s machines. We speak to Sarah Smith, managing director of Dynamic Print, to find out more about this unique and sustainable business Be Different, Be Dynamic COMPANY SPOTLIGHT | DYNAMIC PRINT 1990 – Company officially started trading 1996 – Mark Critten joined the business 2016 – Previous owner Barney Philips proposed selling the business 2018 – Sarah Smith purchased the company following a 30-year career in the paper industry Statistics one of Smith’s most loyal print customers for over 30 years. “During this time, I began to realise just how different his little business was compared to all the other printers I would visit around East Anglia. This appealed to me and I remember jokingly saying to him that if he ever wanted to sell his business, he should let me know… Little did I expect that in 2016 Barney approached me with this very idea and in 2018 I did just that,” explains Smith. While the transaction sounds simple, the purchase meant Smith had to sell her home, leave a successful career behind, and move 60 miles to be closer to the business. “Having to learn everything from the start, at the age of 47, and pre-menopausal it was never going to be easy to get my head around VAT, payroll, websites, blogs, cost control, marketing, vintage machinery, balance sheets, and profit and loss,” says Smith, which she says was all before even getting started on learning to print. When discussing purchasing the business, Smith says that Dynamic Print had a “modest turnover” of around £125k which was operating in a “declining market”. “With my strength in sales I was able to grow the business to £200k within 18 months. However, after a few years of getting established and then navigating the challenges of the pandemic, sales tumbled to below 100k, and I knew I was in deep trouble, so I had to think quick […]” Staying Dynamic With sales falling, Smith knew she had to find a new way to create revenue, especially in a market that was changing and facing several issues separate to the pandemic. “After brainstorming I remembered the seeded paper that I had stored for three years in the cupboard, and started to play around with it. Eventually I would grow and document it – using social media like LinkedIn and Instagram to promote this unusual paper which literally saved the business by generating over 75k in that first year.” Since investing in the seeded paper, Smith has evolved the business by diversifying its paper offering and providing specialist papers that can be embellished. “The biggest surge this year has been the use of sustainable papers with a back- ▲ Sarah Smith, owner of Dynamic Print 32 Issue 360 - May | June 2026 email: editor@printmonthly.co.uk
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