This post comes a little later than intended, as we actually moved into our new Studio in January 2014 and with the new site being on the back burner for some time, well this one slipped. We had been looking for the perfect space to house Girl and Boy for some time, after looking at several potential spaces nothing ever quite ticked the boxes of what we had in mind. Our search started and we saw many suitable but stark and somewhat bland corporate feeling spaces – we wanted something that felt like a real studio, somewhere we could style to our tastes, somewhere we could get our hands dirty and somewhere that would inspire us and also our clients love to come and visit. Just as we were giving up all hope and almost settled on a relatively new venture, which was alright, aside from the overall dingy feel and communal corridors that looked like they had been inspired by the Hotel in the Shining – we spotted something that looked like it was just up our street, quite literally actually. Whilst out and about in Barry, our hometown, we spotted a really lovely shop front with a sign in the window, on closer inspection we were delighted to find that the shop was available for rental as either a retail space or office – it looked perfect, beautifully fronted with original full length Bay windows that looked like they would pay service to plenty of natural daylight and enough space to house us, all our stuff we’ve accumulated and enough space to start think about expanding. Without further ado we arranged to meet the landlord and quite literally snapped it up straight away and moved in 1st January 2014.
Right: The studio is fronted with fantastic windows, allowing for natural daylight.
Above: The studio is fronted with fantastic windows, allowing for natural daylight.
Location, location, location!
One of the things we were slightly apprehensive about was actually not being in the centre of Cardiff, Cardiff Bay indeed is a hub that attracts many design agencies and both Lex and I have had much experience in our Careers working there, when we were actually employed. On serious reflection however we rationalised that this would not be a problem and actually talking with some top players in the industry based around the fringes of Bristol and outside of London, we realised that this made no difference to the perception of their businesses and why should it? So far it has made no difference to us, since we have been in here our client list has seen healthy growth and our clients really love coming to see us here.
We have loads of accessories and prints in the studio that reflect our own tastes, some of our favourites are; Our Coast Modern Screen print by Build Shop (Main Left) Three wooden screen prints by the superb McBess (Top Right) & we all love Wolfie by Donna Wilson (Bottom Right)
Above: We have loads of accessories and prints in the studio that reflect our own tastes, some of our favourites are; Our Coast Modern Screen print by Build Shop (Top) Three wooden screen prints by the superb McBess (Middle) & we all love Wolfie by Donna Wilson (Bottom)
The studio itself is perfect for us and where we are at the moment with Girl & Boy, the building is great and before we moved in was used as an architects studio, a post office and also a Deli. Shortly after moving in we got cracking straight away to start turning it into a studio, several trips to Ikea later and a few custom built pieces our space took shape with next to no impact on work time. Over time we have changed things here and there, removed things that weren’t quite right and overall made better use of the space so that we can easily accommodate our day to day processes, get stuck in with more manual projects (something which we love) and also have meetings and training sessions with our clients. Overall we love our studio and it is a bonus that we are only 5 minutes or so from Barry Island beach, so if you ever fancy popping in for an ice-cream or the infamous Gavin and Stacey tour we’d love to see you, the door is always open!
