Concept House

After too long working in various and quite frankly uninspiring working environments I had finally realised the place I went to work was not the place I went to work. Confused? Not me. All too often I'd had the illusive creative spark when I was least expecting it. I remembered a couple of these spontaneous moments of creative genius. Firstly, the time I had spent almost a week of brainstorming a concept for an ad campaign with not even the chance of rain, only to have the campaign's unforgettable concept (that won the pitch) effortlessly present itself while I was cycling up the most unforgiving hill. No room for pockets in Lycras, so I had to borrow a pen from this sadly confused bloke at the bus stop and scrawl the notes on the back of my hand. Us creatives have abysmal short term memories. I do remember epiphany Número dois though. I had all the vital resources on hand to inspire my creative thinking. 70 degrees of Portuguese sunshine, a couple of ice cold Cervezas and the patio of a run down country club where I was holing up, was all I needed to create almost a whole layout pad of ideas for the branding project I was working on for the local design agency. It was almost, dare I say it easy?

In contrast, I also recall the many fruitless hours of throwing ideas around with my fellow creatives in the office. Are the best ideas collaborative, a team game? Don't think so. Ask Newton, Einstein or Archimedes and they'd have all said it was my idea and not our idea. "Eureka, Eureka" Greek (for I've found it, I've found it)" was never going to be "We' το VE το βρήκε" (Greek for We've found it)" when the last fella ran out into the street naked and frightened half the population of ancient Greece.

Whilst the idea of "team-creative" works for others it's a real burden to pure and spontaneous thought for me. I also have to be in the right place, both in mind and in body. Here's where my inspiration to create the creative space I almost promised myself has found me.

After a couple of decades working from the typical office, sorry studio interiors, the blue carpet tiles, suspended ceilings, trendy leather sofas and ergonomic desks and chairs were taking their toll on my fragile creative core. The external experience wasn't brilliant either working from a business park. Inevitably in the middle of nowhere. Great for double-glazing companies and lorry-parks but let's face it, whatever you do with the place it's going to be about as inspiring as cardboard.

Us designers need to be ambling through inspiring urban landscapes in our lunch hour and not nipping round to the petrol station for a sandwich and then shuffling past a theme pub on their way back to their desk, make that workstation.

Like I said all the good ideas are spontaneous and this again struck at the most unexpected time. No cycling or beer involved. I was in a place called Laguna Beach. A West Coast town, I found later according to research "One of the most desirable places to live in the US". For a change the stats were right. Certainly ticked all the boxes. First stop, the local Design and Art College. All distressed wood, open plan, post modernist and car park littered with classic 70's Autos, Jeeps and Harleys. I mused about turning up for work there everyday in the 70's Dodge Challenger I would buy when I landed the Head of Graphics post. How do you get a Green Card? Next stop the coastal highway. All art galleries, bohemian coffee shops, surf shacks and the odd design studio. The one I really liked was a very simple glass cube. It looked like the control tower of a 30's US airbase. That's the place I want to work I said quietly. The digital camera came out just so I wouldn't forget.

Back in the real world, actually Sheffield where I live and where your studio's vista won't be the Pacific Ocean, I found my own piece of creatopia. OK the new studio only backs onto a brook, but there was something about it that reminded me of the place in Laguna or was that the studio I'd seen in Tribeca? It might not even look out of place there when we've knocked the front about. More inspiration followed as my clients and fellow creatives pointed me at numerous websites and literature which featured the coolest spaces. The ACE Hotel in Manhattan was one that struck in my mind or was that Twitter's HQ in San Fransisco? I took snaps of surfaces, door knobs, glazing and furniture discreetly on my I-Phone all of course honouring James Webb Young's mantra of gathering relevant materials before embarking on the creative process. Designing a studio space is no different to any other media. It's got to be conceived and crafted. This time though I'm the client, so no compromises. One thought though?

Let's call it Concept House. Perhaps not, that would be a contradiction.