The Design Attic stay local to fulfil dreams.

When one young, local entrepreneur had the opportunity to move his business to a new location recently, he decided to stay in Morecambe.

Matthew Brown (30) is a true “Sand Grown ‘un” and had an enviable choice of new locations for his growing design business.  But wanting to stay in his home town to create employment, and service the needs of local businesses, he has taken up residence in the iconic Winter Gardens building on Morecambe’s promenade.

Things are going well.  His company “The Design Attic” had the prestigious task of rebranding the hugely successful Morecambe Hotel.  In the last few months Matthew has created an entire new brand for the hotel that has seen over £1 million investment this year.  With lots of media interest and a hugely positive reception from its customers, the Morecambe Hotel can attribute part of its success to Matthew’s marketing savvy ideas.

He said “We looked at Morecambe’s history and took the original crest from Poulton as the basis for the branding. We delivered over 30 items including all their signage, photography, menu and stationery design. We also created food irons so even the steaks are branded up!   We were thrilled to be able to work with them on such a high profile project”.

Matthew was schooled at Morecambe High, went to Lancaster and Morecambe College and started work as a junior designer in a Kendal based design company. After 8 years it felt stale and Matthew wanted to do something more creative.  He felt ready to accept the challenge of starting his own business. So two years ago he started working freelance from his home in Heysham.  His reputation grew, as did his clients and his portfolio which enabled him to take on his first members of staff. Matthew’s wife Clare now works two days a week dealing with admin and accounts and Rebecca Flack (an experienced client facing Graphic Designer) joined them earlier this year. Together they started looking for a new office they could call home.

Decorated in bright orange (you can’t miss them) they help businesses in the North West communicate with their customers through good design, fresh ideas, positioning and clear messaging.

So what’s next for him?

“Ultimately I want to educate businesses on the value of investing in branding and design” he said.

“At the moment I’m concentrating on working hard for the clients I have and keeping the Morecambe hotel en pointe with all things non digital. We concentrate on traditional marketing services, especially branding, positioning and design. We’ve just secured contracts with 4 new companies in completely different sectors, so we are looking forward to the variety that will bring.”