Sydney-based Ian McCallam has leapt from the web to the printed page, taking the subjects profiled on his website This Ain?t No Disco and featuring them in the drool-worthy new book Where We Work: Creative Office Spaces.

Creative agencies should, by definition, think out the box, and designing an engaging space to house that advertising, graphic design, or new media workspace is the most transparent way to illustrate a firm?s ethos. You are where you work, what desk chair you sit on, what coffee machine you drink out of, what gadget you use for client presentations.

Where We Work goes beyond the gloss of pretty pictures (though there are plenty of those, too) with comprehensive floor plans, architectural sketches, and insight from company directors about making their respective workspaces unique and translating the commerce of creativity into interior design.

Forty-five offices from around the globe are featured, from Nothing Commercial Creativity?s cardboard fort in its Amsterdarm office to the sleek, modular cube desks seen in Syzygy’s German headquarters. Saatchi and Saatchi conducts meetings under a space orb in Saarinen Tulip chairs, while Ogilvy & Mather prefer hyberbole over minimalism.

Ogilvy & Mather

North, in Portland, has an open office plan outfitted in pine and brushed metal; the layout is meant to evoke a “scientific expeditionary camp,” especially in the boxy meeting room cantilevered over the main room.

Syzygy Deutschland GmbH

Some ideas, in brief:

Installing silkscreen doors as space dividers
Building interior structures out of cardboard, plywood, MDF, or other inexpensive, uniform material (page 232)
Re-purposing old hospital beds, dental surgery lights, and airplane cabinets for use in the office (page 130)
Magnetizing cabinet doors to hang up work under review or in progress (page 212)
Installing a modular desk system that can be reconfigured to allow for employee collaboration (page 251)

Nothing Commercial Creativity

Bloom Project (Munich, Germany)

Saatchi and Saatchi

Where We Work: Creative Office Spaces is published by Collins Design (an imprint of HarperCollins) and is available now through Amazon and other major booksellers.

by Kelsey Keith

posted in required reading

tagged advertising, books, ian mccallam, office design, required reading, this ain't no disco

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