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Salford Graduates receive Duke of York Young Entrepreneur Award

Friday 12 July 2019

TWO University of Salford graduates who run their own design studio have won The Duke of York Young Entrepreneur Award.

His Royal Highness presented the Awards to 30 young entrepreneurs, from 19 businesses from Universities in the North of England. The awards are organised annually and presented at the University of Huddersfield to students who have displayed remarkable entrepreneurship whilst at University.

Darya Meszkes and Denisa-Alexandra Anghel run DAR Studio, a Manchester-based design company specialising in branding and other forms of visual communication (graphic design, production, web design).  They graduated from the BA Design course at the University of Salford, which is where they met and began collaborating. Among their creations, the pair have already made a board game aimed at encouraging creativity in children, as well as helped different start-ups to create their visual identity, from branding to web design.

They started their business at Launch @SalfordUni Incubator and have worked both on commercial and charitable projects. They have excelled at developing their brand and becoming key members of the incubator community by sharing their story through Q&A panels, working collaboratively with other Launch members and inspiring other students to follow in their footsteps to consider entrepreneurship as a rewarding career path. Their contribution to building the entrepreneurship community at Salford and inspiring of future generations of entrepreneurs, is what made them so deserving of this Award. 

As part of Launch, they have received support from colleagues at the University and the Business Growth Hub and benefited from Santander Start-Up Award, which gave them funding to progress with their business idea.

Justyna Turner, Incubation Manager at the University of Salford, said: “Both Alexandra and Darya have a great passion for working collaboratively with students and staff at the University, which not only grows their business through exciting new projects, but they are also giving valuable time and opportunities back to the wider university community. This award recognises the hard work they put in over the last year and their commitment to helping others.”

Darya said: “It feels like we are doing something worthwhile. It is such a competitive industry and finding the right path can be difficult and intimidating, and we know that to be especially true for young graduates, which is why we want to offer them opportunities to grow with us. Awards like this let us know that we are doing a good job and push us to go further!”

As part of the event at the University of Huddersfield, the duo had a chance to present their business and projects to His Royal Highness and received congratulations.

Alexandra said: “We were not expecting to be nominated for this award, it was a wonderful surprise and it let us know that we are on the right track. It's wonderful to see the support there is for young entrepreneurs in the North West, and we're particularly grateful for the support we've had from Launch and The University of Salford. Events such as this help give us the push to continue working hard and growing our business.”

Find out more

Sam Wood

0161 295 5361