“For creative agencies and design studios, workplaces are part of their brand identities, helping to attract and retain both creative talent and commercial clients,” Alderson writes in the book’s introduction. “But there is a definite sense that there exists a direct cause and effect between the spaces people work in and their productivity, creativity and outlook.”
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Visiting creative spaces is a kind of “snooping expedition,” he writes. “From the books on the shelf to the choreography of the desktop, the prints on the walls to the music, light and temperature – all of these clues feed into the key question: how does all of this help you do what you do?”
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The workspaces featured in the book are as eccentric and diverse as the workplaces and locations themselves, and thankfully are not all simply riffs on the all-too-familiar 21st-century office-as-playground clichés.
“We continue to be fascinated by that triangular relationship between the creative, their work and their space, poring over the evidence to try to untangle how each factor affects the others,” Alderson writes. “Sometimes, the spaces we come across don’t look anything like we might expect.”