NE Creative

Creative Spaces - Archrival

This Archrival space has been spotlighted in HOW Magazine and rumor is they are out growing this space and will be moving someday in the future. Someday my desk will be a front of a old truck. See photo album.

Creative Spaces - OBI Creative

The latest edition of the Creative Spaces is brought to you from OBI Creative. The OBI space is a midtown location which is an unexpected locale, part of a larger movement to establish midtown Omaha. The space is an open plan redevelopment of the previous office spaces, retaining/restoring some key elements of the original building (i.e. parque floors and brick walls).

The space is split wing with creative and client service departments and contains a garden space utilized for OBI events. Some of their furniture was hand-made by artists. The table in the conference room is a rhombus which maximizes the room's space.

OBI loves the paradox of old with new. They believe in preserving and sustainability, putting a new spin on old to make it relevant again. The office is OBI's remix. The space itself was once upon a time occupied by those who came up with the current Godfather's campaign that still runs today.

The building has five apartments above which will gives OBI more room as they grow. Another building has three apartments where “on-site” OBI employees live.

Stacie Twedt-O’Brien of Inside Design, Bruce Jenkins of Bruce Jenkins Construction and TJ Johnson, VP/Business Development helped make the OBI space a reality. Putting time, effort, love and thought into every thing rom the chalk wall in the creative conference room to the super-huge magnet showcaser.

Creative Spaces - Phenomblue

The interactive agency, Phenomblue, mid-year moved into their new Regency Center space designed by RDG. The new space was design with a open layout which boasts open development area, multiple conference rooms, a break room and two outdoor patios. Phenomblue was kind enough to share and sent over some images of their space. You can also see video of the before and after on their blog. Click here to see photos.

Creative Spaces - June Advertising

Welcome the next edition of Creative Spaces. On the edition we look into the interior work space of June Advertising. Rob Mucciaccio, June's Owner/Creative Director, was very kind to retell the story of designing and setting up June's open-environment space. Take a look inside.

"When we opened June and set out to find space, we were faced with two challenges — cool and affordable. Downtown Omaha was the answer to both. There is an abundance of beautiful, old space that is either renovated or waiting to be renovated, and some if it is reasonably priced.

The walls were khaki, and the trim was olive green when we moved in. Sarah and Charity thought it needed a boost, so using the colors of our logo, they set out to spruce it up. Though she's a writer, Sarah out-paints every art director/designer in the place. Painting did get a bit comedic with a couple quarts of magnetic paint. Someone — who shall remain nameless — used it on metal support columns throughout the space. Yes, metal is already magnetic. 
 
For the furniture, Liz and I rented a Ryder truck and drove to IKEA in Minneapolis. Again — it's cool and was affordable. We picked everything out, paid for it and loaded it onto the truck all in one day. Damn-near divorced right there in the store, but we got it done.
 
As for the open-environment, none of us had ever worked in one before, but we'd heard good things about it and felt it was the progressive thing to do. (Not to mention cheaper.) Three years later, I'm really glad we did it and can't imagine the space any other way. Communication flows. The excitement of hearing good news or the frustration of bad news is felt by everyone all at once. People are less apt to stew over a design or an idea and more apt to turn around and say, "What do you think of this?" I read Tim Siedell's comments in this blog about creating/working in an open environment and couldn't agree more with his points. Especially #8 – Embrace the chaos. Most of us aren't wired to work and interact this way, but if you give it a chance, the benefits far outweigh the challenges."

Creative Spaces - Fusebox Brand Communications

In a recent post on his blog, bad banana, Tim Siedell, creative director and co-owner of Fusebox posted an entry celebrating Fusebox's eighth year anniversary. When Tim and his creative partner and co-owner Yayle Roncka were planning out their work space they decide to create an open studio environment. In the post Tim says that the decision was one of the largest factors to the success of Fusebox.

Also in the post were eight lessons learned about setting up an open works space.

1. Be prepared to hate it at first.
2. Go wide open and go big.
3. Create little areas for a little privacy.
4. Cut the cords as much as possible.
5. Understand that it's not for everyone.
6. Create face privacy, not monitor privacy.
7. Build music into the environment.
8. Embrace the chaos.

In addition to this pearls of wisdom Tim took photos of the finished second phase of their new studio space they moved into March of this year. So without further adieu I bring you the creative interior of Fusebox.

You can see the full Flickr set here.

Creative Spaces - Corporate 3 Design

Welcome to the 2nd edition of Creative Spaces. I am relieved and glad to continue on this bit. I bring to you the "church of design" as it is called by some, where C3D spends their days creating work for their clients. Enjoy your tour.

Creative Spaces - Oxide Design

Here is a new segment that gets you inside the agencies of Nebraska. Our inaugural interior...Oxide Design. Oxide just moved down the street from their old dwelling to this great open space that was originally a hardware store (I know this because the old neon sign still hangs over the the space). When asked the reason for the moved, owner Drew Davies replied, "We moved to the new space for a variety of reasons. First, it’s way more space: more than double what we had before. Secondly, the new space is a lot more inline with Oxide’s core ideals of clarity and efficiency. Lastly, we got tired of dealing with the old landlord." The space looks great Drew. I hope you can bring that hardware sign to it former glory too. Click here to see the photo gallery.