Scott Berkun

7 Responses

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• Scott - October 20, 2008 at 11:18 am #

• It’s a fluffy piece, but here’s a CNN piece on the 21st century office.

  
  

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• John - October 20, 2008 at 12:57 pm #

• There is an interesting chapter in Gordon MacKenzie’s book “Orbiting the Giant Hairball” called Milk Cans Are Not Allowed – He talks about purchasing milk cans for trash, antique roll-top desks for work-spaces and hanging stained glass windows and old doors to define offices (He was the design director at Hallmark.) He was often approached by others to find out where he had received the budget to pull it off. It ends up that his work areas costs almost $700 less than the regular cubicle. The main point is that creatives can get a richer and more supportive environment at less cost.

  
  

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• Sean Landry - October 21, 2008 at 7:00 am #

• A few key essential:

  1. Lots of space to hang things (stickies, comps, wireframes, charts etc.)

  2. Natural light. Not sure this is just for designers but I find confinement stifles creativity.

  3. Open floor plan – The space should invite collaboration. It should provide just enough privacy to send email to your wife but not enough for you to play WOW all day.

  4. Color printers – A necessity. Designers want to print it and show it. This goes back to #1

  5. Shared bookshelf – Designers seem to have more than the average bear when it comes to books. Give them a space to share.

  6. Collaboration space – Could just be a round table in the middle of the room but it’s a space to talk and brainstorm.

  7. White boards and lots of markers

  8. Something funky – this can be really anything as long as it encourages everyone to feel free to bring in their funky crap and let their guard down.

  
  

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• ryan fritz - October 23, 2008 at 7:52 pm #

• Check out the most contemporary office signs and conference room signs suitable for all office designers.

  
  

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• Lynn Cherny - October 25, 2008 at 2:56 pm #

• Just catching up – that Pixar article by Ed Catmull (my review here: http://www.ghostweather.com/blog/2008/10/pixar-on-successful-creative-teams.html) does talk about this a bit, and I remember a good internal Xerox PARC doc by Rich Gold on this topic (a friend of Bill Verplank’s, another sketching maniac) – which I can’t find online, but did find someone quoting him on the philosophical side of it and with his sketches! Here: http://ic-pod.typepad.com/design_at_the_edge/2007/05/fire_juggling_o.html

  
  

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• Scott - October 26, 2008 at 12:16 pm #

• 1. Some interesting examples and a few (somewhat thin) case studies:

  http://www.creative-va.com/portfolio.html

  2. And then this bit of advice on office design:

  http://www.ehousestudio.com/blog/2008/05/30/5-ways-to-create-a-creative-office-space/

  
  

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• Scott - October 26, 2008 at 12:19 pm #

• Here’s the motherlode of interesting/inspiring photos of creative workspaces:

  http://www.thecoolhunter.net/offices