Dutch designer Joost van Bleiswijk first came to our attention last March with a Core 77 post on his wonderful cardboard office design for Nothing creative agency in Amsterdam. Here Joost answers some questions about his work habits, Lego and what inspires him.

Where do you do most of your designing? Home is 2 minutes from the studio. The house is a nice and warm place, the studio is huge, white cube of 1000 m2.  I have had a separate workshop since 2002, first in a small garage, later in a 300m2 place and for the past year in an old Philips factory building that is a national monument.

What does an average work day involve? Everyday is different, but it always starts with emails, then coffee with the crew and a chat, then we discuss what has to be done. Then it’s always different. In a ideal day, I work in the workshop, doing tests, little models, etc. But the average day involves telephone calls, email etc. A lot of controlling and talking and looking to what the guys are doing.

You’ve been using corten steel in your latest designs (including the desk clock above). Is there any form of technology that really inspires you and helps you in your work? New fast hardware tools in the workshop, like a new metal grinder, or revolutionary grinding discs.

What item from your desktop can you not do without? I rediscovered Lego as a perfect sketching tool for technical problems!

What inspires you? Kiki [That's fellow designer and partner Kiki van Eijk. There's a nice interview with Kiki on Three Layer Cake. The image below of Joost and Kiki ran in Eigen Huis]

[All images of the Nothing office by Joachim Baan]

An ugly wall socket is the bane of many a home offices. Mine is a beige rectangle of plastic home to an angry mass of cords. And we are wireless! Sure my keyboard and mouse float around free but the monitor and laptop and phone and printer and desk lamp all need to be plugged in. Oh, and the phone charger. Neffa, a Dutch design team, have come up with an elegant solution. “The basic assumption in all [our] solutions is that the wall socket itself does not change. No new shapes, no special modifications, no unusual designs: it is about integrating the existing wall socket into the interior design in its original shape.” Clever and stylish. Via Design Milk.