Leeds Independent Bikes

A little while ago Duke Studios launched a Tour de France fringe project with a difference. The project aims to promote independent businesses across the city and encourage further cross promotion between independents in the run up to the Tour. Kay Brown asked Laura Wellington, co-director of Duke Studios a little more about the project.

What is Leeds Independent Bikes?
Leeds Independent Bikes is a project that has been created by us here at Duke Studios. It’s 120 vinyl stickers that are in the shape of bikes designed by local illustrator Tiger Tea. They will be stuck up all over the city highlighting the excellence, versatility and variety of independent businesses in Leeds on the lead up to the TDF2014. The bikes are placed on the windows of independent businesses that have signed up and of other organisations who have allowed us use of their windows to support smaller independent businesses who are without windows.

Next to the bike stickers, there’s a small piece of information about the business, their website and a note of the Leeds Independent Bikes website which will showcase the map detailing all of the businesses involved along with their key information – a sentence about the business and their website (see image below).

It’s Duke Studios way of shouting about all the ace businesses in Leeds during the Tour de France – highlighting them to the city’s visitors in the run up to the Tour de France and the visitors over the race weekend. It’s really easy for us all to forget what great businesses we have in the city and whilst people won’t want to be bombarded with information all of the time, the run up to a big event is a great time to encourage people to see their city in a new light and rediscover places.

Where did the idea come from?
We originally pitched the idea for funding from the Grand Depart cultural festival with lots of different ideas for show-stopping projects across the City but we weren’t successful. We spent a little time trying to get corporate sponsorship for our projects but then we decided to focus it down to something that independent businesses could support and encourage themselves.

We wanted to create a different type of fringe project which wasn’t just “art for arts sake” it had to be creative but also beneficial to the businesses we’re trying to support.

Alan from Laand – a landscape architect who is a resident of Duke Studios – and I sat in Outlaws Yacht Club one night over a few beers and after much discussion of how we could achieve a project ourselves, we came up with the idea of #Leedsindiebikes.

We had to make sure the project was something which we could create using the facilities and skills of our space and the Duke Studios team but that was also something which would actually benefit the city.

We’re passionate about the Independent business sector in Leeds; it’s great and it’s really growing.

Leeds is a good city to start a business but it’s tough and it can be hard for us to find the support to help our businesses grow or be seen by the wider public. So this is a way of encouraging us all to promote each other and ourselves, a showcase for all that want to be involved and hopefully the start of a more joined up independent business community for the future.

If you could have use of any building in the city for the project, which would it be and why?
We would love to get the entire window frontage of Majestik or Broadgate Office space on The Headrow. We just want prominent ace places that are going to help highlight the incredible businesses in Leeds. It’s been quite tough to get extra windows – in fact we can’t quite believe what a palaver it is just to get businesses to give up some window space for a month – we’d hoped that the landlords of empty properties would see the benefit of appearing integrated into the city and the Tour de France activity.

What else do you think the city should be doing for independent businesses?
Lots of things! The independent business scene is a huge part of what makes a city attractive to both residents and visitors. You can land on pretty much any high street in the world and see the same gentrified landscape – people visit cities like Barcelona or Berlin to discover the hidden gems and to seek out things that will provide them with a new experiences and ace memories – you don’t go back to a friend after a trip away and tell them all about Primark do you?

I don’t think that the independent scene in Leeds is nurtured, supported or promoted in the way that it could be and hopefully the #leedsindiebikes will start to show the city a small part of that scene. We also know that there are way more than 120 independent businesses here and we want to play our part in highlighting them.

How can Leeds independent businesses sign up?
You just go to www.leedsindependentbikes.co.uk and fill in the contact form. We will reply with a few questions and you just need to respond with your answers and logo, pay your £30 and we will then add you to the website.  The vinyl bikes will then be cut and made in our studio before being placed up around the city. We’re curating where the bikes go and each business will have a bike which promotes another business – that way people who love visiting the likes of Laynes will discover somewhere else that they might like. The deadline for buying a bike is this Friday – the 25th of April.

And finally, which bike have you chosen?
Duke Studios has been set up by myself Laura Wellington Designs and James AD Photography so we bought bikes for our own independent businesses. There are 24 different bike designs, all based on different types of bikes and I went for a Raleigh Chopper whilst James chose a Lotus Sport.

For further information about the facilities and services at Duke Studios, head over to their website here. To see more of the illustrations and graphics designed by Tiger Tea, visit her online portfolio.