Last week we were enjoying drinks and nibbles with some photographers in the Design Space, and they asked, why all the pictures on the walls?

The short answer: We’re visual people and we need visual prompts.

The long answer: It’s part of our design process. We fill walls with things that inspire us, projects we’re working on and ideas for the future. They remind us what we’re up to and where we’re going.

Workspace has been our main focus as designers this year. We’re a small team, and it seemed a daunting task. “Where do we start?” we thought — so we took to the walls.

First we looked for inspiration from people doing things we like, like Country Road and Citta Design. We broke down the key areas of Workspace we believed needed improving. We looked at shoe companies, graphic designers, photographers, and more! – looking for things we loved.

Then we went to our notebooks to create rough sketches of our ideas, before moving on to Photoshop. Transforming what had inspired us into concepts we could apply in Workspace. It became a bit of a joke as we covered more walls with ideas flooding in, and the designs we were developing. Our ideas got debated and the developers got involved, until finally we were replacing our Photoshop designs with real live screen shots. The pay-off!

Now we’ve released new web themes, a new page designer, cool blog enhancements and more … and our walls continue to evolve with new ideas and inspiration.

How do you stay inspired and motivated?

Alexandria x