Today’s Creative Workspace comes to us from Dave Donaldson. You can check out his set up after the jump.
Have you submitted your Creative Workspace yet? We’d love to see it.
Check out the other’s here!
Here is how Dave describes his space:
A few years ago I started working from home and at first started out in our loft. But not long after that I finally spent the time to finish our basement and promptly moved my office down there instead which made all the difference.
It’s such a great space with one half for my office and the other for the Xbox. The great thing about having my office in the basement is the ability to close the door, which is really a sign to my kids that dad is working 🙂
Some people can’t work from home, but for me, it’s where I’m most productive. The space allows me to not only focus on whatever it is I’m working on, but I’ve spent many a late night sitting at my desk, headphones on, simply thinking about things.
A space to think through your thoughts is important.
Take a look at what he’s got:
Ah, so nice. Number-coded!
As for the space itself, I took the liberty of calling out various aspects of it in the picture, so here’s the rundown:
1. Headphones, required. These are usually on my head, and usually to some sort of loud rock music (Foo Fighters, Kings Of Leon, Queens Of The Stone Age, Wolfmother, Green Day, The Black Keys, etc). If I’m not rocking my face off, I’ll turn on a soundtrack, such as Star Wars, Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter, or Gladiator.
2. This is a desk calendar one of the kids got me when they were little from their Secret Santa store at school. It’s got a fishing line bob on top and says “I’d rather be fishing”, yet I don’t fish. Classic, but I’ll never get rid of it.
3. Lord Sauron, for real. It’s an awesome action figure, really heavy duty. I only wish I could find his mace.
4. Ohio State football helmet, holds my pens and pencils. Goes well with the OSU tattoo on my left arm.
5. Francesco Bernoulli, from Cars 2. I’m a huge Pixar fan and find that company extremely inspiring for the amazingly creative things they’re able to do. Francesco is my favorite character from that movie.
6. Edna Mode, from The Incredibles. Also my favorite character from that movie (along with Frozone, of course).
7. This is a collectible of 3 actual pieces of film reel from Lord Of The Rings. Back when Return Of The King was released, some theaters showed the first two movies (and extended editions at that!) leading into the third movie on opening night. My wife’s 30th birthday was around that time, and she’s as big a LOTR fan as I am, so I planned the whole thing and surprised her with tickets. We happily spent 13 hours watching the entire LOTR trilogy in the theater that day. Obviously that was a big deal, and at those theaters they sent various bits from the movies to give away to patrons at the different locations. Our theater scored the film reel pieces, which includes one frame of the reel from each of the 3 movies. Yes, it’s as cool as it sounds.
8. The first of my dual 24″ widescreen monitors. On this one goes email, any command-line stuff (i.e. git), and my text editor (Notepad++).
9. The second 24″ widescreen monitor. This is reserved for browser windows and whenever I need to flop open database stuff (MySQL Workbench).
10. My laptop screen is the 3rd monitor, hooked up by a MyGica USB adapter. Perfect for TweetDeck and the music player.
11. Map of Middle Earth. Did I mention I was a LOTR fan? I’m also a massive Star Wars geek, always have been, and the Star Wars Special Edition movie posters for the original 3 films hang on the wall opposite this one.
12. Filing cabinet that holds various unused gadgets and cables. What’s on top is what matters, though. If you look close you can see my Gears of War Imulsion energy drink, Darth Vader USB port, Mr. Red bobblehead, and Mr. Potato Head Buckeye football player. And do you see that black box in the front? That’s my scaled Obi-Wan Kenobi lightsaber.
13. The Whiteboard. This is where all the magic happens. Almost everything I do starts out in some form on this whiteboard. It’s intentionally large at 4′ x 6′ because I’m constantly using it to write, draw, and flush out my thoughts. I literally cannot function without a whiteboard.
So there you have it. What some people simply call trinkets, in my space I use them as creative inspiration. Pixar, Star Wars, LOTR, stuff from my kids… they all play a role in how I think.
Here are a few more pics from Dave’s space:
If you’ve got a Creative Workspace we’d love to see it!
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