index card junkie
I'm an admitted fanatic about office supplies. Not expensive pens, mind you; the gel ballpoints I favor run 77 cents. I'm happy with saddle-stitched composition notebooks, although not Steno pads with green lines and wire-o binding, which remind me of when I once tried to teach myself shorthand.
I'm speaking partly about cool tools and partly about toys that inspire my real work. Some of this comes from spending fifty hours a week in front of a computer. There's value in interacting with physical objects, tactile tools whose primary function may simply be organizing the sheets of paper piled around the desk.
But a lot of it comes from a need for play, the same reason I prefer a messy wall of interesting postcards to stimulate ideas than a blank, bare one. I buy index cards in day glo colors, hoping one day I'll develop an ingenious scheme that requires a hot pink category and thereby justifying my love of color. In the mean time, I enjoy the simple frivolity of it.
Creativity is rarely sparked by the blank canvas, unless you are as uninhibited as a five year old.
No, imagination is sparked by broad vistas or ranges of color. At my last job, where fixed white boards generally offered a choice between a dried up brown marker and perhaps an orange one, we ordered our own set of dry erase markers. It was a small purchase, accompanied by a sense of triumph that we were hoarding the best colors for our best work.
Now I can't really claim that having a purple marker, in addition to a blue and yellow one, led to meaningful results. You still need someone to brainstorm with. But happy employees produce more with less effort, and these markers made us happy. Purple didn't obviate the need for black. It just made work feel less...black and white.
As you can tell, I never had the full set of 64 Crayolas when I was a kid, the box that included the sharpener. Deprivation informs my design work, my delight in simple tools.
I once described my ideal job as being the person who gets to name colors. (I was clutching a paint strip labeled Cherry Blossom White at the time.) And yes, I am still lusting for raw sienna and mulberry.
Tags: office supplies, tools
If you somehow missed the coverage, read about Kyle MacDonald who used Craigslist to trade one red paper clip for a house. Here is a man who understands the value of office supplies.
I'm speaking partly about cool tools and partly about toys that inspire my real work. Some of this comes from spending fifty hours a week in front of a computer. There's value in interacting with physical objects, tactile tools whose primary function may simply be organizing the sheets of paper piled around the desk.But a lot of it comes from a need for play, the same reason I prefer a messy wall of interesting postcards to stimulate ideas than a blank, bare one. I buy index cards in day glo colors, hoping one day I'll develop an ingenious scheme that requires a hot pink category and thereby justifying my love of color. In the mean time, I enjoy the simple frivolity of it.
Creativity is rarely sparked by the blank canvas, unless you are as uninhibited as a five year old.
No, imagination is sparked by broad vistas or ranges of color. At my last job, where fixed white boards generally offered a choice between a dried up brown marker and perhaps an orange one, we ordered our own set of dry erase markers. It was a small purchase, accompanied by a sense of triumph that we were hoarding the best colors for our best work.
Now I can't really claim that having a purple marker, in addition to a blue and yellow one, led to meaningful results. You still need someone to brainstorm with. But happy employees produce more with less effort, and these markers made us happy. Purple didn't obviate the need for black. It just made work feel less...black and white.
As you can tell, I never had the full set of 64 Crayolas when I was a kid, the box that included the sharpener. Deprivation informs my design work, my delight in simple tools.
I once described my ideal job as being the person who gets to name colors. (I was clutching a paint strip labeled Cherry Blossom White at the time.) And yes, I am still lusting for raw sienna and mulberry.
Tags: office supplies, tools
If you somehow missed the coverage, read about Kyle MacDonald who used Craigslist to trade one red paper clip for a house. Here is a man who understands the value of office supplies.
Labels: design, project management
posted by Diana at
2:42 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home