Canalside fits joinery with identity

Canalside Media, a design studio run by students from the University of Huddersfield, has beaten three consultancies in a pitch to create the website and brand identity for joinery manufacturer Contemporary by Design.

Canalside Media, a not-for-profit consultancy set up four months ago to aid student training, beat Step One Internet, Blue Media and ICM Netserve Solutions to the job, worth £2400. It is its first major win and its fee will be ploughed back into the studio.

The website, which along with the brand identity launches on 31 July, focuses on a 200-year-old mill bought by Contemporary by Design co-founders Gillian and Chris Heleine which the couple are refurbishing internally.

The site will show the house in its before and after states and is designed to showcase the company’s furniture designs. It will eventually be used to sell company products.

‘The house is very minimalist with sharp, clean lines and we want a website to reflect this. We mainly do shop and bar fit-outs, but we are diversifying into making furniture. Our target audience is top-end architects and we want the site to look good so they are encouraged to explore it,’ says Gillian Heleine.

‘As we are made up of students, Canalside has to impress on people that we can actually do the job. It pleased me that we were not the cheapest bid,’ says the university’s senior lecturer and Canalside Media studio director John Kelly.