Office Space

About a month ago, I moved offices at my day job. I’d been in my old office since I started working at the university – that’s more than 5 years. I shared my old office with 2 other people, so it was somewhat lacking in privacy. Mind you, we had partition walls and similar things which helped with that. If you are sharing an office and struggle with privacy and/or concentration, you might want to take a look at https://www.versare.com/portable-shield-partition/ as they make a big difference. I won’t be needing any of these in my new office though, as this one is just for me. One odd thing about my new office is that it’s actually inside of another office area, so I have lots of windows from my office into the Purchasing department. My new office really needs a thorough clean so I think we’re going to hire a commercial cleaning service like greenfacilities.co.uk to come and sort it for us.

Needless to say, I’ve covered my windows with some lovely artwork for a little privacy. It’s also really nice to look up from my computers and see a wall of Jackson Pollock. I love building websites, but sometimes it’s nice to look up from all of those lines of code and see something a bit more… free. I kept the office furniture simple as I didn’t want anything too fancy, but I found a fantastic website called Office Monster which had some great office supplies and furniture on if any of you guys work in an office!!

I also use the edges of the windows as shelves to hold nicknacks, books, and other art pieces.

You’ll notice quite a few ampersats (@ signs) around my office. I absolutely love them. For me, as a web designer, they are the best form of monogram. I’ve had to look into Crate Hire to store some of my office supplies that I no longer need. I’ve got so much stuff though!

In my office, I also have a nice credenza that houses most of my reference materials and files, but the top is covered in artistic objects, mostly a wide selection of vases created by, retired professor and ceramic artist, Joe Smith. They’re great for decoration and holding my supplies.

Of course, the best and most important items in my office are probably my Edward Tufte books, which sit on the top of the credenza for easy reference. My old CGT friends will either find it completely hilarious, or the most logical thing in the world (maybe both) that I keep these out. Boy did I hate having to read The Visual Display of Quantitative Information in college, but it is terribly useful. Of course, those Tufte books are also stacked on top of my copy of the Hyrule Historia.

Where do you work? Do you have your own office space? What do you keep in it?