Current Clients 
Case Studies
Andrassy Design
Brightwater Coaching
Creative North
Huddersfield Town Partnership
I-glu and Common Agency
Interactive Solutions
Music & the Deaf
QT Creative
Space2Work
Susan Kenyon Marketing Consultants Ltd
Taste London
Topps Casting
Andrassy Design
Getting installed in the Media Centre back in 1999 was the best move David Andrassy could have made. He arrived as a sole trader: since then his consultancy, Andrassy Design, has grown to a creative team of eight and has had to move several times within the Media Centre into ever-larger offices to accommodate his increasingly successful business.
Andrassy Design works exclusively with the non-profit sector. Managing director David readily identifies the benefits of his Media Centre location. "Clients take you more seriously when they see the level of professional services provided, including on-site access to IT," he says.
The company's strength lies in building strong relationships with clients, addressing the particular issues which confront them. Their needs are specific as well as diverse: they are based at local, regional and national level and are involved with health and social care, cultural diversity, higher education, affordable housing, the arts, regeneration and community cohesion.
The range of services and the creative ethos on site at the Media Centre has allowed Andrassy Design not only to meet those various needs but also to develop the consultancy itself.
"The experience gained through intercultural communication has provided a greater understanding of how to reach out to the diverse often marginalised communities that our clients serve," says David.
"Being based at the Media Centre has also raised my own expectations of what Andrassy Design is capable of delivering."
Brightwater Coaching
Brightwater Coaching has been a virtual client at The Media Centre since January last year, working with business owners and leaders to boost their business performance.
It was started by Linden Veitch in August 2005 since when it has gone from strength to strength.
Among services launched by Brightwater Coaching are the Beyond Excellence Mastermind Roundtables in Huddersfield, which provide a unique opportunity for members to take regular focused time-out from their businesses to gain new perspectives, inspiration and the support of fellow members – all people who are running businesses and have extensive experience and acumen to share.
Linden also provides one-to-one coaching. Her aim here is to achieve measurable business growth results and to help people become more personally effective in business.
Brightwater Coaching plans include a re-branding from Brightwater Coaching to Linden Veitch – “My name is more memorable and, so after two years, I’m giving in and doing what I should have done to start with,” says Linden.
She also wants to build up the Mastermind groups and undertake more transformational business coaching contracts. She sees being a virtual tenant of the Media Centre as vital to her company’s development.
“Because I work across a large geographical area, having a virtual base with the facilities and service of The Media Centre in Huddersfield is a bonus. The centre has a great feel to it – it’s welcoming while being business-like and there’s a tangible culture of innovation and progress which fits very well with what I do.”
Creative North
Games are fun but they’re also big business: Creative North, which specialises in developing games for mobile phones, is based in Huddersfield but is targetting an ever-expanding global market.
The company was set up in 2004 by Huddersfield University graduate Phil Mundy with the help and support of Huddersfield Business Generator. He set up shop in the Creative Lofts and has never looked back: in just three years, turnover has grown from £0 to £450K while the staff of two is now a team of 12.
Phil Mundy certainly believes he’s in the right place. “The Creative Lofts is a really complete facility and provides a dynamic media cluster so we don’t have to look far for creative practitioners,” he says
The expertise on hand at the Media Centre is an added bonus: “All of our design and printing is done through contacts made at the Media Centre.”
Phil Mundy hasn’t forgotten what it was like to be an enthusiastic student: Creative North combines commercial game-development with his Creative North Academy, a learning and skills-based environment which offers work-placements to young people who are passionate about games. The company works closely with Huddersfield University, giving the best of the undergraduates on its games-development courses a head-start in the industry, putting them together with more experienced programmers and artists to work on real commercial projects.
Like he says, Phil Mundy certainly believes he’s in the right place.
Huddersfield Town Centre Partnership
It started back in 2000 with one over-riding objective – to support and encourage businesses in Huddersfield and to attract new ones to join those already there. Now Huddersfield Town Centre Partnership Ltd has 170 companies signed up as members, so the formula must be working.
HTCPL works to maximise the investment performance of businesses in the town centre by giving them a framework within which they can grow, thus helping to retain wealth and asset in the town.
That framework includes improving access; increasing footfall; upgrading the environment and reducing crime. All these initiatives relate back to the primary goal.
Working on behalf of HTCPL to achieve all this is the Town Centre Management team, which moved in to Huddersfield’s Media Centre in 2006.
“Our primary audience is all the businesses within the town centre and all those who use it,” says Julia Lilof, assistant Town Centre Manager. “The Media Centre is such a well known place to meet, it’s a central address and easy for people to get to. We’re placed in a vibrant location in the town centre.”
The Huddersfield Town Centre Partnership Ltd is working towards increasing membership and liaising closely with partners to create a living and vibrant town centre for all to prosper in and enjoy. The Media Centre offers the perfect base.
“It is a safe environment and a great place to work from,” says Julia. “Access to the meeting rooms is very handy and they are clean, well maintained and free of charge to tenants.”
I-glu and Common Agency
Since Warren Slingsby moved his i-glu web design and development service into the Huddersfield Media Centre last year, his company turnover has doubled and he’s the first to give credit where it’s due.
“I have picked up new clients by being based in the Media Centre and have benefited from networking,” he says.
Warren moved in to the Media Centre with Ben Childs who runs his own Common Agency, a web and mobile design and development service. Sharing offices allows them to call on each other’s expertise: Warren provides the creative design input and Ben deals with the technical aspects.
I-glu offers everything from a simple web-site design through to e-commerce to content management systems to search engine optimisation, which ensures that the clients’ potential customers can find them.
Ben’s Common Agency deals with everything from static wap pages to rich smartphone interfaces. “We are specialists at creating and delivering excellent mobile user experiences,” says Ben. “We have worked with mobile data since the Nokia 'Matrix phone' of the late '90s pushed the mobile internet into the mainstream.”
Warren worked from home before moving into his hi-spec offices in the Media Centre with Ben. Now the two entrepreneurs are thriving in the creative environment.
“As a small business, we also appreciate the café here, which gives a more central space to hold meetings,” says Warren. “It’s a useful tool in terms of meeting clients, accessing the internet - and it’s nice to get away from the desk.”
Interactive Solutions
One of the first occupants of the Huddersfield Media Centre when it opened in 1995 was Dayn Wilkins, managing director of Interactive Solutions. He was a sole trader then. Now his business employs a creative team of eight while his company’s annual turnover is a healthy £500K.
The place has obviously proved the perfect solution for all the company’s needs. “Being based in the Media Centre has exposed us to new clients as well as giving us easy access to complimentary services,” says Dayn. “It also provides an ideal opportunity to network, as well as being centrally located. And you can use the café for informal meetings.”
Fortunately the Media Centre is very accommodating for growing concerns. “We have stayed here because, as our company has grown, we have been able to move from one office into another to accommodate our expansion,” says Dayn Wilkins.
Interactive Solutions provides web design and development and digital media services to a wide client base across the UK, mainly from the education, public and corporate sectors. Key services include web design and development; internet application and database design; search engine optimism and marketing; CD-Rom, DVD-Video and DVD-Rom design; digital photography, filming and editing; print design.
Two of Interactive Solutions’s major clients are Yorkshire Forward, worth £450K over three years, and Huddersfield Textile Centre for Excellence, with a learning project worth £150K.
Along with the business rewards has come other recognition for the team, whose work earned the title Best Information Web-Site, Yorkshire Internet Awards 2005.
Music & The Deaf
Music & The Deaf was set up by artistic director Paul Whitaker in 1988 in his parents’ attic but his enterprise soon outgrew such limited space.
When he looked around for suitable premises, he opted for Huddersfield’s Media Centre. He liked the central location and good transport links, while the creative environment was perfect for his work: his clients are all keen to explore the arts.
Paul’s company was established with the aim of giving people suffering hearing loss the opportunity to get involved in music and the arts through workshops, educational projects, talks and signed theatre performances.
It’s a much appreciated service: turnover at Music & The Deaf has increased from £40K to £250K in the last five years while his start-up staff of two has trebled.
“Over the years we have liaised and worked with different companies in the Media Centre,” says Paul. “Networking has been further strengthened through the Breakfast Club Network events. Before that started, you were aware of who else was in the building but the network events have helped build stronger relationships with other creative people based here. It’s been incredibly valuable.”
Paul is also full of praise for the town itself. “Huddersfield has huge potential as a place for creative industry. I think being based here is pretty reasonable in price when you compare the services provided and the attractive facilities, as well as being located in the town centre.”
Accessibility is crucial for Music & The Deaf and Paul’s particular clients. That old attic space just wasn’t quite right.
QT Creative
One of the longest-standing tenants in the Media Centre has been so successful since moving in over eight years ago that the company, QT Creative, is now planning to move out.
“The Media Centre has been able to support our growing company for many years and has enabled QT to get to the point where we are now looking for our own premises for further growth,” says managing director Clare Quartermaine.
QT Creative is a marketing and design agency which focuses on anything and everything to do with communicating a company brand, product or service, be it through print and website design/development to advertising and press relations.
The company’s key developments include cutting-edge technology in the speedwayworld.tv website. “We receive a live feed of results into the system from Sky, so that fans all over the world can see live results where TV coverage in unavailable,” says Clare.
QT Creative is now firmly established, with a loyal client-base which is expanding on a daily basis. The company contiues to grow and take on new members of staff, hence the plans to take on their own premises.
“The reason we’ve stayed in the Media Centre for so long is because it is central, looks impressive to clients and has a friendly atmosphere,” says Clare. “The location is easy for clients to get to from the M62 corridor and, on site, the cafe is excellent and looks very impressive.”
QT Creative won’t be disappearing off the Media Centre radar, says Clare, who has forged some excellent contacts there: “Everyone knows everyone in this town.”
Space2Work
One of the great success stories of the Media Centre in Huddersfield is Space2work Ltd, which moved on to be virtual member after just 12 months of trading in the centre due to outstanding growth, which included acquiring another company.
Space2work Ltd started out with two employees - managing director Stephanie France and co-director Ray Norris - but now employs 26. Turnover, which started at £0 heads ever-upwards. “Our plan is to be a £5million group by 2009,” says Stephanie: “We are already reaching £2.9m.”
The team provides tailored office interiors, full fit-out and turn-key building refurbishment. Organisations are rightly concerned with the image of their workplace but the design of an environment which will reflect an organisation’s culture and values has at the same time to meet the needs of its staff.
Space2work’s target audience includes the nationwide SME market, organisations with 10 to 250 employees who are relocating or refurbishing existing office accommodation. They deal across all sectors but mostly the service and professional sector.
Stephanie France is full of praise for the place in which it all began and with which the company still maintains close links. “We chose to launch Space2work at the Media Centre because it offered good office accommodation with the flexibility of an immediate and professional business address, telephone/fax numbers and the telephony service, so, while we were out on business, our office was still being attended to.”
Space2work was the winner of the Huddersfield Trinity Mirror Business ‘Rising Star of the Year’ award in 2006 and, more recently, won the 42 under 42 Insider business award for ‘Best Start-Up Business 2007’ and was nominated in the business category in the Yorkshire Evening Post 'Women in Achievement's’ awards in May 2007.
susankenyon Marketing Ltd
Susan Kenyon Marketing Consultants Ltd was established 10 years ago but only moved into the Media Centre in December 2006.
According to director Susan Kenyon herself, the move is already paying off. “The Media Centre has given us access to a larger business community and support network,” she says. “The town centre location works for us in that everything is close to hand.”
Just months after moving in, susankenyon Marketing Consultants Ltd won three major contracts, two of which are for London clients.
The agency specialises in strategy (planning) and research. A successful initiative has been the introduction of Marketing Clinics, which give clients access to professional ‘bitesized’ marketing in a two-hour time slot.
The company’s target audience is UK private and public sector organisations and companies, especially in food and drink; health and well being; training and public sector consultations.
Susan is aiming to develop the company into the Market Research Agency in West Yorkshire.
tastelondon
The director of London’s biggest diners club says that being based in Huddersfield’s Media Centre has provided the springboard for the company’s rapid success.
tastelondon started just 18 months ago and set up office in The Media Centre in September last year. In June this year tastelondon moved into he new Friendly St building.
Says director Matt Turner: “The Media Centre has provided tastelondon with the technical support and network needed for a new media business.
“Through the variety of office space available, tastelondon has been able to grow and naturally progress to larger office space when needed. Indeed, we are now in our third office since moving into The Media Centre.”
tastelondon is the largest club of its kind in the city and has secured contracts with key media partners there such as Time Out magazine and Metro newspaper, as well as supplying memberships as a core benefit to numerous companies based in the capital.
There are currently 500 tastelondon restaurants and more than 25,000 members.
tastelondon is now looking to expand nationwide and expects to have doubled its restaurant and customer base in 2008.
Topps Casting
Nicci Topping, who runs her own casting agency, Topps Casting, is one of the Media Centre’s virtual tenants but there is nothing virtual about the benefits she enjoys at arms-length.
“It’s really good to be able to use the address and the café bar for meetings,” says Nicci, who was formerly based in the Media Centre – “it was a nice place to work in” - before taking her business home.
Nicci worked as a casting assistant, then set up her own agency before becoming a casting director some five years ago. Topps Casting now sorts out the right people for television commercials and has worked with leading brands such as Vodafone, AA and Kelloggs. Nicci counts some of the leading UK production companies among her clients.
She is currently working towards relocating her business to Spain.
If you are interested in locating your business within the media centre, get in touch with us.
Tel: +44 (0)870 990 5000
Email: info@mcnetwork.co.uk
Fill in the: Enquiry form
Download: Info sheet 
