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October 2006
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"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."

-Scott Adams

(click image to "Flirt" with style)

Designing for creativity
Innovation is taking center stage again in the business world. That's freeing workplace designers to focus on supporting the creative process, according to Gensler in Dialogue magazine.

Business Week calls it "the Creative Economy." After cost cutting their way through the downturn, businesses across the board are refocusing on their need to develop new sources of growth. That means innovation—and a new focus on design as a way for companies to differentiate themselves in the marketplace.

When teams are called on to create unique new products, services, and experiences, their innovation process brings them closer to the design studio than the traditional workplace. Indeed, some argue that business challenges are so like design problems that traditional "business logic" and methods of analysis don't work anymore. All of which means that right- brain types, those who think like artists and designers, are coming into their own in the workforce.

This raises the stakes for the workplace. "The ideas in people's heads are what add value in the Creative Economy," says Barbara Dunn, a workplace leader in Gensler's Los Angeles office. As a result, "the emphasis is shifting from left-brain metrics like square feet per person to right-brain metrics that focus on how the workplace enhances people's ability to generate compelling new services and products."

See what Gensler’s author, Rupal Shah, has to say on making room for interaction, balancing community and privacy, and a workspace that says creativity matters.

LOGICmeet & Dialogue
HBF continued their winning ways, scooping a 2006 Best of NeoCon Gold Award for an occasional table series that extends an office furniture line. While the new LOGICmeet tables garnered the jury’s honors, it was the new Dialogue workplace lounge chair that got NeoCon buzzing. Instead of the complex gadgetry that typifies this type of furniture, HBF came up with a simple, classic piece, well suited to the informal gatherings so characteristic of modern office life.

Sleek and scoop-shaped, it emulates the organic look pioneered by designers like Bertoia and Arne Jacobsen. Diaologe combines ergonomic sophistication with sculptural beauty.


Talking to...Ken Wilson & Diana Horvat for HBF
Interior Design recently featured HBF’s Trace collection, the first fabric line by Envision Design principals Ken Wilson and Diana Horvat. The line comprises six eco-friendly patterns that would add interest to any workstation panel. Wilson and Horvat take us behind the scenes by answering the following questions and more:

  • What's your firm's stance on eco?
  • What inspired you?
  • How do the patterns reflect your architectural work?
  • What was your greatest challenge?

Assess your level of creativity
Get a free assessment of your level of creativity, measured across 8 different metrics, with the Creativity Self- Assessment. The questionnaire contains only 40 questions and your personal score will be compared with the global average score.

All the best,

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Bill Meyer
Contract Specialities, Inc. (CSI)

phone: 954-389-1295

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