I was interested in an article I found on CMO.com by Sofie Sandell. Her beat is the cross between the new digital world and creativity. There are a lot of those gurus out there. But there was a particular part of her piece about creativity and the office space and how it informs how open to innovation and creativity we are as a culture. Recently Leopold Ketel revamped our own office space and we decided to do something with our display windows. You can see the result above. We’re still working on our interior but the high ceilings and the brick walls say “creative” every time someone walks in the doors.
Here is the relevant quote from the article:
As a professional speaker I travel a lot and visit both new hotels and new businesses all the time. One of the things that you pick up on when you enter a building is the art and symbols on display. Last week I visited a government agency that is trying its best to be creative. The office looks great and wouldn’t look out of place in an interior design magazine. But something was missing. There were no symbols that I could connect with the people working there.
The opposite is Twitter’s London office. When you enter reception you see two big art pieces that are made up of the tweets of the people working there. It looks great and it’s a clear symbol that the people working there matter. It gives them freedom and the right to express themselves.
Art and symbols give us a sense of belonging and identity and if they are effective they support the way we work together.
In my discussion with Derek Cheshire he also said: ‘Visualize walking into a nursery for children; the children’s art is all over the walls. It makes the place feel alive and makes all of the children visible. Imagine if you could do the same in a workplace.’