A Creative Guide to Independent Chester.
The Break Creative Agency, and ōH Foundation, two of the cities leading creative enterprises, have teamed up to curate a guide to an independent Chester, to spotlight some local favourites and up and coming things to do to experience a cooler and under the radar side to the city.
I’m sure we’d all agree that when we visit a new city or country, we research the best coffee shops, places to eat and independent shops that city has to offer, so that we’re maximising on our experience whilst we’re there. This has always been something i’ve done, whether it’s Copenhagen, Los Angeles or trying to keep up with the never ending crop of coffee and restaurants opening in London, that is turning my Notes App into a novel, - recommending to friends or referring back to myself, with each visit. But since moving back to Chester and opening the agency, I’ve noticed an influx of places making Chester a cooler place to want to visit. I’m not ashamed to say that when I lived in London, I had no interest in moving back to Chester due to its lack of options of hospitality or general attractions that appealed to me. However, I remember walking down Lower Bridge Street when ōH first opened its doors, in what is now Butchers Salon and I think i stopped in my tracks and thought “hang on a minute, what do we have here...” I remember discussing with friends how great it was to see something different, ultimately cool and how actually, somewhere in Chester now stocks Hay.
Never did I think that fast-forward to now, our agency and Monika Swindells the brains behind ōH ( now Design Foundation) would be curating a guide to Chester, highlighting in our opinion - the best of city.
We then started to design how we wanted the guide to look, I wanted to make sure it was pocket sized and heavy on the visuals, making it easy to read and enjoyable to have, but also to pop in your bag. I also, did not want the Eastgate Clock or the Cathedral on the cover, two landmarks which make Chester iconic of course, but we were targeting a different kind of audience with this, the type that want to enjoy a less-commercial, cooler and independent side of the city. So we decided on using a block colour, so that in the hope of creating additional volumes each year, they could be collectable and aesthetically pleasing when stacking on your shelf or passing to a friend. However, it still needed to encapsulate the two minds behind the guide, ōH is known for its bold and avant-garde design and feel, whereas, although an agency working on all manner of imagery, we have a more minimal approach and eye to design, so the end result felt like the perfect synergy between the two.
Then it was the task of getting businesses to agree to be part of something they didn’t really know how would turn out, there’s a few guides to Chester floating around but we wanted this to be different, embedded with style and good taste, so we knew we needed the people in it, to reflect what we were trying to do. Luckily, we did that tenfold.
It was a privilege to spend time chatting and getting to know everyone in the book, the majority, I and the team are hugely familiar with anyway, but it was so interesting to learn more about these businesses than what I thought i already knew, solidifying exactly why I wanted us to curate this.
When putting the guide together with the team, it felt we have the perfect mix of everyone involved, the contrast of different enterprises, but as a whole, appeal to the same person reading. The idea being that we want you to go for your morning run with Kilometre Club, then grab a coffee in Nuance or Chalk and then in the evening meet your friends in Covino, it’s just the perfect day in Chester, is it not? We certainly think so.
On behalf of myself, the team at The Break who worked incredibly hard on curating this guide and the support of Monika at ōH, we want to thank everyone for putting their trust into a new guide which we are sure and hope, will have a big impact on over the year, the people in the guide make the guide, we just want to shine that light on them for understanding and appreciating their craft.
We don’t want to give too much away, so we implore you to read it and we want to hear your thoughts, feedback and who you’d also like to see in next years edition - we already have our eye on a few...
The guide is now available to buy on our website, at ōH Design Foundation and soon to be more locations across the city, we hope you devour it, pass it onto your friends make notes in the back of new places that have popped up in the course of Volume I’s tenure and we’ll see you next year for Volume II.