June 5th, 2007
New digs
Since I started Mark Boulton Design last August, I’ve been working at home. It’s been mostly fun, but the words of Andy kept ringing in my ears loudly as time went on.
“Get out of the house as soon as you can afford it” would rattle around my head like some crazy mantra. Andy’s point was, sooner or later the two environments would merge; home and work. You’d end up doing the laundry whilst at work, and designing when you’re supposed to be enjoying a nice evening with your wife. He wasn’t wrong.
As of last week, Mark Boulton Design Ltd. has a new home.
I’m sharing offices with a web development company I know well; Beanlogic. We’ve been developing Flow together for ages now (yes, yes, it’s coming) so we all get along well.
The new desk and Beanlogic: Keeran, Kate and Martyn (Elwyn is missing from this shot, but he sits to my right).
The new office occupies two rooms on the top floor of an old dock offices building in Sunny Cardiff Bay. For those of you who have watched the apalling Torchwood, the office is just around the corner from the secret exit/entry point near the funny fountain, mirrored sculpture thingy. For those who are familiar with Cardiff, I’m just around the corner from the Oval Basin, the Millennium Centre and the new Senedd (the Welsh Assembly Government building). It’s a nice place to be, especially in summer.
Back to the half-hour commute and having to make sandwiches (when I remember). I’m actually really enjoying it at the moment. The commute gives me a degree of separation which wasn’t there before and there’s a level of office banter which was all but absent when I worked at home (I don’t really count the Postman as a colleague).
To go with the new digs is a new business website (which has been on the go since SXSW in March) and I’m so looking forward to designing the letterhead and new biz cards. Print is really a treat sometimes. Like cooking, print design is nice to do occasionally, but if I had to do it for a living, it’d do my head in.
I said when I first started this ‘working for my self’ thing, I’d try and document every step. Well, as predicted, I haven’t. But this is a pretty big landmark for me and the business and I just wanted to put it down for the record so I can look back in a few years time.
Great news — looks ace.
I found making the leap from home to office meant I had a much more professional outlook on things.
I also enjoy getting things done in a more definite time frame, say before 6pm, then I can go home, whereas before it was a case of, “I’ve got all night”…
Hi,
Your office looks nice, it looks like a new step in your carrer, congratulations!
I am also looking forward to afford an office and leave my home…
Maxime.
That is a very yellow wall there. The office banter is something all designers seem to enjoy, as well as vigourous discourse on the hidden depths of celeb culture, it’s always good to bounce ideas around on what each other is working on. Sometimes though as a web designer, you do need that block of silent time to swear and scream at some bizarre IE CSS problem, so it works both ways I think as some offices are never quiet.
Good luck though, and careful with that screen.
It’s actually more orange in real-life than yellow. Sort of muddly tangerine.
This screen is giving me neck ache actually. I remember now why I ditched the idea of two screens a while ago. In thory it works well, but in practice, it’s hurts the neck. Maybe I just need to build up that specific neck muscle.
You need an ergo expert. Or a swivel chair. Swivel — good word.
you could think of this actually:
http://spinalis.co.uk
I actually did treat myself to an Aeron (which isn’t in shot). So I’m all swivelled up thanks. You’re right Simon, a great word.
It’s funny, I worked at home for five years, then rented an office for two or three years, and for the past six years I’ve been working at home again. It suits me. I’m a pacer, I can’t sit still at my desk for very long and am always jumping up and walking around to think, which seemed to startle my office mates when I rented an office. Doing the laundry or taking a break for food shopping seems to work well for me and actually keeps me more productive…I seem to accomplish my best work in sprints rather than long drawn out marathons. I do miss having people to talk to, though. All my work colleagues are in another city, in another country in fact, and I only see them face to face once or twice a year. Other big advantages are that I’m always home and thus security is less of a worry; the big disadvantage is that I’m always home and thus confronted by the same set of walls day and night. When your spouse works elsewhere and wants to be home at night and you’ve been home all day and want to go out, it can cause tensions.
I also prefered working at home but I ran into the same problem. When I started, everything was still fine. But after a couple days it started to destroy my productivity completley. Suddenly while making a sandwich you start feeling the need to have a little break and see what’s on TV, still with the intention that when you finished eating you go back to work. But than you stumble across a n interesting documentary and boom!
You’re start doing work at night while friends are calling you to come down to the pub. And you start thinking “Well I’ve been home all day, I’ll just have a couple drinks” and Boom again.
Everyday I was getting less and less productive(and than I’m talking about a time span of 10 days or so).
Now I always go out to work. In the weekends I’ll even head to the library if I have to, and I don’t come back home before I’m finished. In that way home stays home and work stays work.
Hi Mark, congrats on the move, the place looks lovely albeit I would’ve thought that you would’ve had a minty green for the fireplace wall?
Hope Kee and Elwyn has treated you to the delights of Gorge with George and the New Dock Tavern? (the landlord makes the place)
Also if you can I dare you to challenge Kee to a game of Quake, his reaction times are quite scary.
Oooh, the new logo is really rather nice! (The corporate site one. I don’t know if it’s been up for a while, but it’s new to me having visited it for the first time today — so nice work!!)
Rich
P.S. Is that your work station directly in-front of where you took the photo from? Because if it is, you have a rather nice setup!
Working at home is one of the most understated considerations when starting up a business. Invariably, it’s a necessity early doors. But the discipline required to seperate work–life and family–life is rock hard.
well done on the move Mark. I can certainly attest that making the leap into a “proper” office rather than working at home really helps your sanity. As Gaz writes, it’s about separating work and home life — something that’s incredibly hard to do when you work at home.. unless you have nerves of steel.
Nice office. We have an orange wall at work too, nice and bright!
Well done Mark.
I’d watch that shelf by the window. Looks like it could go at any minute… I don’t miss working from home one bit. We have it good here in the antipodes: weather, women and good coffee… oh yes, and tea. So it makes sense to get out of the house as often as possible. Interacting with others of different professions makes it even more worthwhile. Good luck with it all.
Congrats on the new digs Mark, it looks like a fun place. Like Martin said above, I don’t miss working from home one bit. I started working from home a few months before my wife and I moved from Florida to South Carolina and continued in our home office for about 2 years. My friends always asked me how I had the discipline to stay focused, but really it was the solitude that got to me. Especially when I was writing my book… All I did was work, write, eat and sleep. A month or so after finishing the book I started working for a company downtown and it sure is great to have coworkers again.
If I ever start my own company, I won’t be doing it alone. I’m a bit of an introvert, but I’m not a hermit.
I think that the person which work from your house complete a work better and faster than the person that “live” into the office near 10–12 hours every day.
By The Way seems a very good office, my best compliment!
Working from home is usually great in theory; you can sleep a bit longer, you don’t have to wear work clothes and can just walk around in slippers and a comfy pair of trousers while enjoying a cup of coffee. But in the real world, unless you have insane self discipline, having a proper office is so much better. I work much better in an office where there is very little things to distract you from the work. And also — and this is probably the most important thing in the long run — you get a much better separation between ‘work’ and ‘life’.
I love the idea of going to work for 7 hours, then going home and feel free to do anything you want without thinking of work related issues for one second. When you work from home, maintaining this freedom is incredibly hard and you’ll probably find you have no real spare time other than when you sleep or eat. Because when you’re constantly given the opportunity to get some work done, and if you’re not completely satisfied with your productivity at any given day, you either end up working overtime when you shouldn’t or feeling guilty for not doing so.
A few years later, you’re all burned out.