We’ve been based in Salford for quite a while now, 15 years in fact, wowzers, where did all that time go!?
By mid 2015 we’d increased the team to 14 and were beginning to outgrow our little nest on Waters Edge Business Park opposite Ordsall Hall. Naturally our thoughts turned to moving our creative headquarters to a more spacious home. As an eco-friendly branding and web design agency we’ve have always taken a sustainable approach to growth and with some ambitious recruitment plans for 2017 it was time to think where we would like to be.
We looked at a number of spaces across Manchester, hubs like The Hive, The Sharp Project, The Chips Building, we even grew beards, donned flat caps and flip flops to tread the paved ‘creative’ hangouts in the Northern Quarter… D’ya know what I mean, ‘r kid. These places were all great but we were suffering a Goldilocks complex, non of them were ‘just right’, Salford has been our home for so long and we’re sentimental little souls at Carbon, so as the sun set over Carbon towers for the last time in Ordsall we looked forward to what the new day may bring…
…Tomorrow 😉
The Tomorrow building in MediaCityUK is the space that tugged at our hearts. A brand new tower built in the lovely shiny MediaCityUK complex. The building has a contemporary industrial design both inside and out. We love the extensive use of glass on the exterior to give plenty of natural light and the exposed steels and fitments internally, the building has a certain honesty about it, there’s no excessive use of unnecessary fitments, it’s attractive yet purposeful, utilitarian yet modern. Also of interest to us at Carbon is that MediaCityUK is one of the first developments to obtain BREEAM Communities status which is credit to the planning and architecture of the site and buildings. We also loved the plan for collaborative spaces on the ground floor which we often make use of. Lastly, Salford has been our home for many years of work, rest and play, we’ve watched MediaCityUK being built, wondering if we’d ever move there. When that time came it was like the planets had aligned and it was the perfect moment for us to move Carbon HQ, onwards and quite literally upwards to the Tomorrow tower.
We were one of the first three tenants to take keys to the Tomorrow building, basically we were given an empty shell. I took it upon myself to draw up the internal plans, I loved designing the space to fit our needs, curvy walls, curvy kitchens and curvy carpets, it’s fair to say we had a few head scratching moments with the fit-out company but they did a grand job of building and fitting. Paul, one of our brand designers, helped with partition graphics and I got handy with my trusty Dewalt tools creating our media wall cabinet complete with Ultra HD display hidden behind black tinted acrylic, lush!
There are still a few things to do, more wall graphics, ideas for roof hangers, 3D projectors, arcade games and all sorts of crazy kid type stuff like that, but we love the space as it is right now. MediaCityUK is fun and inspiring, after nearly a year calling it our home it feels a natural fit, a place where we can flourish.
I enjoyed my brief time as an interior designer on our new office layout, an interesting change from branding, graphic design and web design.
Usually, whenever anyone asks me what has been your best design work, I joyfully muse (in an OMG I hope I’ve still got it kind of sentiment)… ‘I believe my best work is yet to come…’ but perhaps I should append with ‘I believe my best work is yet to come…maybe Tomorrow?’ Tee, hee 🙂
