‘Sportsmaster’ was founded by brothers, Danny & Teddy Craze. Sportsmaster’s first location was in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. This was in a small unit with a 1 hand carousel. Printing for local schools and clubs.
Sportsmaster moved to a bigger premises in Gadgebridge shops, Hemel Hempstead where business continued to grow, slowly. Lee left school at 15 and joined the company at 15 years old, learning to print.
Sportsmaster soon outgrew the premises and moved to Camden town, near the roundhouse. They teamed up with a company called ‘Tony T-Shirts’ owned by William Wakefield and they formed ‘Fresh Air’. Fresh Air’s first ever 6 colour automatic machine was purchased and their first ever tour was underway, printing began for Stevie Wonder. Fresh Air couldn’t believe their luck and started to print for what’s known as one of the most famous concerts in history around the world, ‘Live Aid’. Printing over 400,000 T-shirts, from one machine, running 24 hours a day for weeks on end. Fresh Air soon outgrew these premises in Camden as they were printing largely amounts of tour T-Shirts.
Fresh Air moved again to a 5,000 square foot factory in Willesden. A second automatic machine was purchased to keep up with their ever-growing print demand. Lee had moved out of the workshop and headed up the sales, where he managed to bring a new client onboard ‘Bravado’, who were a young merchandise company printing for likes of Status Quo, Abba and Iron Maiden.
As Fresh Air continues to grow a third automatic machine was purchased.
Danny Craze retired from the business, brothers Lee and Spencer Craze took over as partners.
Fresh Air was on the move again and took the 10,000 square foot unit which remains the home of Fresh Air today, Fastly becoming a recognised printer of music merchandise with now, 3 automatic machines under their belt.
Continuing to grow another two more machines were purchased and an additional unit of 18,000 square foot was taken on.
Lee & Spencer had their first venture into licensing taking a Pan European euro 2000 license. Later that year Fresh Air merged with ‘Smith & Brooks group’ and became part of a multimillion-pound business over night. Still mainly printing music but also for high street retailors such as British home stores, Arcadia group and C&A. This gave Fresh Air a massive opportunity to increase their customer base. Quickly needing more print capacity, a further 3 machines were purchased, totally 8 machines.
Spencer left the business and Lee remained partners with Smith & Brooks, the business was going from strength to strength.
The Smith & Brooks group which included Fresh Air, was sold to Sports Direct and business continued to grow.
Lee had an opportunity to buy back Fresh Air and successfully purchased it back and ends up being the sole owner, business was back in the family name. Fresh Air remained in the same premises but invested in more machinery, pre-press screen equipment and packing equipment and became an accredited facility. This is where Fresh Air became a leader in the music merchandise industry and high-street retail supplier, world wild. In the years to follow the business really focused on building a great team and investing in machinery to build on its position as a major supplier in the live event industry.
The Bespoke Fresh Air Hot Air balloon was purchased, and Lee soon became a pilot, many flights were taken with Fresh Air’s logo flying in the sky!
Printing garments digitally was starting to make an impact and could potentially be a gamechanger. This new format was embraced, being one of the first traditional screen printers to invest in DTG. A few years later there were 4 machines at Fresh Air and with the partnership with Brands in, bought in a big new opportunity to offer print on demand, direct to consumer. Print on demand did not have the impact on larger production as first envisioned. However, a 10 million pound business called Brands In was built, on the foundation of Print on demand and continues to thrive today.
Fresh Air purchased its latest Hot Air balloon and so much fun has been had with it, entertaining clients and family ballooning trips with the Fresh Air balloon.
Nobody could have predicted, the deadly strike of Covid which completely shut down live events and a week later forced the doors of Fresh Air to be shut for 12 weeks. For a year of having no business this period really rocked Fresh Air’s solid foundations and went into survival mode.
Slowly business started coming back and Fresh Air has since entered its most successful period, the future looks bright with some exciting new opportunities.
Fresh Air celebrates 50 incredible years of Business!
