How long have you worked from home? And where is home? We have worked from our home in West London for the last 15 years and I think it has worked really well because we have always had separate offices – probably we would have driven each other mad otherwise. Working from home has its pros and cons, but definitely one of the greatest advantages is being on hand if you have children…it was great when our daughters were small as we could fit work around them rather than the other way round.

Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? Our look is definitely eclectic – a mix of contemporary office furnishings with “furniture classics” from the 50s, 60s and 70s….Charles Eames, Pierre Paulin, Vico Magistretti, Charles Pollock. We think it is really important to work in a pleasant space so we try to make our workspaces as un-officey as possible by having art on the walls and lots of interesting objects from our personal design study collection.

How do you keep your home office organized? Peter manages to keep a pretty tidy office, but unfortunately my desk is a mess of stacked paper as is my computer desktop….when it gets too bad I have to have a ruthless spring clean….which is very therapeutic.

When you put together your home office what did you keep in mind? It was important for us to create workspaces that had lots of book shelves and filing capacity, but also we made the conscious decision not to use desks or office chairs that looked too corporate.

Is there any piece of home office furniture you covet? An antique plan chest would actually be a really useful piece of furniture for us, but unfortunately we don’t have the room to accommodate one!

What is a desk accessory you can’t do without? Our Folle stapler it is just a beautiful yet functional object, Fiskars scissors are pretty great too…

What would you change about your own workspace? More space for more book shelves!

What do you most love about your space? Looking out through the window into the jungle-like garden which is planted with enormous palm trees.

What inspires you? We love the research that lies behind our books, especially when we make historical discoveries and, of course, working with other creative people such as the authors, editors and graphic designers is also highly inspiring.

How long have you worked from home? And where is home? I started working from a home office in the Summer 2007 when I began full-time work on Selectism.com (a men’s lifestyle and fashion blog) and consult work. My workspace was inside a loft which was directly across the street from Boston’s Fenway Park. 88 to 90 days out of the year, ball park traffic – both human and vehicle – ruled. In 2009, I moved outside of Harvard Square on the Cambridge side of the Charles River for a bit of relief. I haven’t left yet.

Describe your style? My style is pretty simple. I prefer a very clean workspace which holds only the essentials. My desk and desktop are as bare as I can keep them, which can be a struggle at times.

How do you keep your office organized? I’m thinking here of the physical space but also your computer. Are there any particular programs you find really useful? At the end of each day, I do my best to reorganize it back into order. There is something about bringing my workspace back to order which actually keeps me focused when I sit down first thing in the morning. It is a bit habitual. Many friends tell me that workspace clutter is how they manage their day. I’m just not one of those people. I have to be organized (on both desktops) to stay focused. I also rely heavily on email filters and labels for both task management and assignment. I use Simplenote for lists but plan on moving to something more robust like Things sooner rather than later.

When you were setting up your home office what did you keep in mind? Well to be honest, the space I am in on this side of the Charles was initially supposed to be temporary. For this reason, most of office is still in storage. Everything from books, music, ephemera, and artwork are packed away. As I need a reference piece, I’ll dig through the boxes and take only what I need, which keeps the room pretty bare – in a positive way. There are lessons learned from this office which I’ll take with me to my next space. Natural light was the most important requirement. In the loft, I only had light during the early morning. Today light flows from two sides of the room, but both indirect rather than coming from windows directly in front of my desk. Also, a desk under-mounted USB hub makes plugging in devices fast and easy. I highly recommend diy’ing your own.

Is there any piece of home office furniture you particularly enjoy? I’ve had a Herman Miller Aeron chair for over 10 years now. It has been the one constant in my workspace since 1999 when I purchased it. While other parts of my workspace turn over often (think swapping iMacs every 16 months), the Aeron has always remained. Every three months or so, I work out of our Berlin office for a few weeks and their chairs are difficult. I miss the comfort of the Aeron immediately.

What is a desk accessory you can’t do without? The (massive) custom amplifier on my desk. I plug a pair of Sennheiser 595 headphones into it. That’s the amplifier’s only function – a headphone amp. It serves its single purpose role better than most devices on my desk.

What would you change about your own workspace? Maybe a bigger desk and some shelving so I can pull the books and magazines out of storage.

What do you most love about your space? Being able to look outside my windows and see green grass and sunlight.

What inspires you? Music inspires me every day as does the “hand made” movement which you can find at craft fairs like Renegade. It is inspiring to see what work people develop in this area – from printing, to accessories. It is incredibly impressive.

How long have you worked from home? I’ve been working from home full time as freelance graphic designer for 3 years, I’m working mostly in the fields of institutional and culture communication in France. I am also an illustrator, which I enjoy most and I try to post a sketch as often as possible on my tumblr blog. I would love create children books now! I’ve always had a place to draw where I lived as long as I can remember.

And where is home? Our home is in Lille, in the north of France, between Paris, Brussels, London and Amsterdam. I really enjoy living in one of Europe’s cross roads. We bought our house 2 years ago from one of my partner’s former architecture teachers. I like the idea that the place where I spend most of my days has been a home office for a long time.

Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? The house was built in 1930, we are furnishing it slowly with furniture found in jumble sales or vintage stores from the 30′s to the 50′s. The home office is the place where I feel free to stick any pictures I love anywhere on the walls just because I want to be able to see them all the time (and take it away when I’ve had enough of it). It is full of tins, old books and toys I find everywhere.

How do you keep your office organized? I’m thinking here of the physical space but also your computer. I organize myself with a pen and a paper – everything starts in my big blue notepad (they are always the same, I only change the colors of cover when I buy a new one). All my lifework is in there. I once threw one away by mistake, and had to have a look in the street paper recycling bin to find it… my neighbors thought I’d gone mad that day. When my notepad’s closed my workday is finished. Also shelves! Plenty of them –  so that books, magazines etc. can stand vertically, instead of horizontally in piles. Filling the shelves with the books I love when moving in, it is always a great pleasure.

Are there any particular programs you find really useful? I use Skype everyday, it changed my way of working in team with other freelance graphic designers, they became kind of colleagues in a way!

When you were setting up your home office what did you keep in mind? When we moved into this house the ground floor walls, where I work now, were already covered with bookshelves which was ideal, and the former landlord had given us a beautiful old “double desk”. We just had to refresh the white paint, sit down, and work. We added a big old workshop table where I like to draw because it is far from the computer and a big “cat-approved” sofa to make the place warm and comfortable, friends are always welcome to sit down and have a drink and a biscuit.

Is there any piece of home office furniture you covet? Honestly not really…  I might need to find a place on the walls for a proper inspiration board to avoid flyers, articles and post cards everywhere, that’s all I am thinking of for the moment.

What is a desk accessory you can’t do without? My “gigantic” screen, I miss it when working away from home on my portable computer.

What would you change about your own workspace? My workspace is a bit dark in winter, I need better lighting.

What do you most love about your space?  When the sliding glass windows are wide opened in spring and summer I feel like working outside and I love it.

What inspires you? I receive the Grain Edit newsletter every day. I love art and graphic design from the 50′s, I love the clear, simple and efficient style. I admire the way artistes use subtle and bright colors. Charley Harper is one of my favorite illustrator. I also admire japanese illustrators such as Yoshitomo Nara, for the same reasons I guess. Apart from this, I think that if you pay attention around you,  everyday life is always very inspiring.

How long have you blogged from home…and where is ‘home’? Design Crush began in June 2007, but I didn’t start blogging from my current home until I purchased it in July of 2008. I live in a 3 bed, 2 bath ranch style home with one entire bedroom devoted to my artsy side. It really is a dream come true. I blog from this refurbed red desk that I got at a hotel sale five years ago. I’m in the process of finding the perfect desk chair since my old one recently broke. For now this straight back will do and better my posture at the same time!

What does an average work day involve? I’m sort of meticulous about my blogging schedule. I have a day job as well as Design Crush, so I have to time manage extremely well. My weekdays start around 6am and I get into the office by 7:30. I spend roughly an hour perusing my reader and following up on emails. Then I’ll plan what posts I want to put up that day, write and code everything, and schedule them to drop throughout the next eight hours. After work, say three nights out of the week, I’ll research posts and do anything extraneous that’s hanging out.

I just got the new Mac mouse and it’s amazing. It has definitely changed the way I work. Is there any form of technology that really helps you with your work? It sounds cliche, but definitely my MacBook Pro. Without a doubt the versatility it allows is astounding. I lug it everywhere with me. This past January I spoke at the Alt Summit in Salt Lake City and thanks to my laptop was able to live tweet a lot of the information that was being passed on through the different panels. It helps to break down any barriers that might exist as far as internet access and getting content out to my readers.

How do you organize your space? My physical space is organized according to inspiration. I want anything within my line of sight to have an indirect influence on what I’m doing at any given moment. So my desk faces my inspiration board and the window directly next to it looks out onto the back yard. My home magazines are immediately within reach to the right and a large amount of my art supplies are stored within boxes are the shelves to the left. I’m also really old school as far as planning goes, paper all the way.

What item from your desktop can you not do without? My speakers (not shown). I listen to music all day, every day. It plays a big part in determining my mood for the day and can really heavily influence my design on a good day. I live on blip.fm.
What is your favorite piece of office furniture? It’s actually the Chiasso Studio chair I currently have at work. I’m hoping to replace the current one in my home studio with the very same. It’s so comfortable!

What inspires you? The easier question would have been what doesn’t? I’ll just stick with the biggies to spare you: mid-century modern architecture and design, great logos and books.

How long have you worked from home? And where is home? My home is in Oslo, the capital of Norway. We bought our apartment last year, and have been remodeling since. The room we are planning to use as a home office is not finished yet, so for the last six months I have been sitting at the kitchen table writing my master thesis in art history. I’m writing about the Norwegian design community, at home and abroad, in the Scandinavian Design years, around 1955.

Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? I try to mix new and old, and think its important that some of the things we surround ourselves with have a history. I especially love objects from the 50s and 60s, and combine them with a modern, simple interior. White walls are a good base for teak furniture, and all my old tinboxes and enamelobjects from the Norwegian producers Cathrineholm and Emalox.

How do you keep your work space organized? A lot of binders are the clue for keeping my table clean. I work with newspaper articles from the fifties, and the copies have a tendency to cover my entire work space. To keep track of my thoughts Ive hung a large piece of paper on the kitchen wall. On the paper I’ve written down the main structure of my thesis, and I constantly add new information to it. Seeing my thoughts written down like this, help me see new connections and what is really important.

You are remodeling your apartment right now will you have a space for a home office? We have just started with the last room, which will become a combined office and guest bedroom. It’s quite a puzzle deciding how to decorate it, and we still havent made any definite choices. Time will show…

Is there any piece of home office furniture you covet? I want many, many meters of bookshelves, so I can keep everything organised. The dream is to own twenty meters of Nisse Strinnings String-selves (www.string.se).

What is a desk accessory you can’t do without? Post it-notes for practical reasons, and my Moomin-mug because it makes me happy.

What would you change about your own workspace? At the moment it is of course to have the workspace somewhere else than in the kitchen, which is not very practical in the long run. Books and paper all over the place while trying to cook dinner is not a good thing..

What do you most love about your space? The large table where I can spread out all my notes, paperclippings and books. And in moments when my head feels like it’s filled with cotton, and it’s impossible to write anything at all, the view!

What inspires you? My friends, beautiful blogs, magazines, books, art-exhibitions, riding the tram and citywalks with music in my ears.

Do you listen to music while you work? It depends on what I’m doing. If I am working on production sewing or photo editing, I will listen to podcasts (I love The Moth) or loud music (usually punk). If I’m doing something where I need to think, it will be quieter music. When I’m creating a new clothing collection, I’ll listen to something that feels inspiring to that particular collection, although it is usually something quite minimal in sound—ethereal/ambient.

What do you listen to? I think my musical tastes are all over the place. I tend to listen to stuff I’ve had forever because I’m too busy to find new music that I like. Generally, my heart lies in punk, minimal/ethereal/ambient, dance/electronica and breathy woman vocalists. I also like it when I can hear a guitar player’s fingers on the strings.

I sort of feel like my tastes don’t change too much, although when I was in grad school in the late 90′s, a friend let me listen to a demo tape given to him from a friend who worked for a radio station. It had the song “Greenlander” by Pavement on it. At the time, it wasn’t on an album and I remember the song really haunting me. When I asked the friend about it later, he didn’t remember it and had returned the tape. I periodically thought about the song, but couldn’t find it (and that was back before the Internet was so huge).  Recently I thought of it again, looked it up on Google (it was finally released in 2002), and was disappointed that it really didn’t live up to my memory.

How do you listen? In my downstairs studio, I listen through a speaker system on my iPod, or on headphones if there are other people in the house. At my desk upstairs, I listen on my computer.

Do you have any favorite music websites/providers? I really like Last.fm because you have the ability to build a library of artists that is easy to browse and search. They also have a function that suggests other bands you might like based on bands in your library. My 9-year-old even has his own account.

Does music influence your work? Certain music definitely influences how I think about design. I’m interested in design that is simple, but has a bit of interesting detail in the construction with an emphasis on texture. My Fall 2008 collection, titled “Land,” was really inspired by images of Iceland as well as minimalist ethereal music like of the Icelandic band Sigur Rós. What I think of as a spare but beautiful tone in their work really inspired me.

Where do you find music recommendations? I get music recommendations from friends for the most part. I find I don’t have the time to search for new music these days.  And as I mentioned previously, I like how Last.fm will recommend bands based on what is in your library. As far as influence goes, either I like it or I don’t. I can usually tell right away if I like something—I can just feel it inside. I’m the same way with color. There are certain types of music that make me feel physically ill. (Bluegrass would fall into that category.) There are also certain songs that I just think of as happy songs, like “The Boat Dreams From the Hill” from Jawbreaker’s 24 Hour Revenge Therapy. Strangely enough, most of the songs on that album are happy songs for me.

If your work was a song or a musician, what or who would it be? I guess I would like it to be Sigur Rós, but it’s not there yet. It’s where I aspire my work to be.

MARTHA’S PLAYLIST:

West Bay Invitational, Jawbreaker

Secret, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

Sweetest Decline, Beth Orton

Debaser, Pixies

When I Grow Up, Fever Ray

Why Can’t I Be You?, The Cure

Go Do, Jónsi

Downtown Train, Tom Waits

Mysterons, Portishead

Compression, Everything But the Girl

Pretty Little Girl, All

I Feel It, Lorraine

I Try, Macy Gray

The Walls Are Coming Down, Fanfarlo

Sir Duke, Stevie Wonder

Safe From Harm, Massive Attack

Three MC’s and One DJ, Beastie Boys

The Greatest, Cat Power

Billie Jean, Michael Jackson

Tribulations, LCD Soundsystem

Glósóli, Sigur Rós

Mouthful of Diamonds, Phantogram

Images: Martha McQuade and Sarah Rubens

Today, I’m still in New York City and I work from home as editor of otto a+d, a trade blog that targets interior design professionals; I am also the US Editor for WGSN-Homebuildlife, a trend forecasting agency based in London; and of course I’m still designing for dressed in yellow.

Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? I love the word “style” because to me it’s a matter of self expression, fashion and design are simply tools we use to achieve this. For this reason, my style is a bit all over the map. For me, style is what happens day to day when I reconcile comfort, mood, beauty, inspiration and restraint.

How do you keep your office organized? I hate to admit it, but I am quite disorganized by nature. I have towers of papers, books, fabric and press kits on my desk, threatening to fall on me and ruin my life. With all the different jobs I have going right now, I have come to depend on my Google Calendar. It is what keeps me from missing my deadlines, double booking appointments, and forgetting to buy a father’s day gift.

When you were putting together your home office what did you keep in mind? Honestly, I just hoped everything fit. Once it was clear that my small apartment could house all my enterprises, I wanted to make sure that my sewing table, drafting table and desk were able to get good light.

Is there any piece of home office furniture you covet? Is there any that I don’t? I love design and have made a career out of looking at great design day in and day out. To me, the greatest design is when function, form and process work in harmony, and when that happens, how can I not wish that piece was in my life?

What is a desk accessory you can’t do without? Surface area. Since I’m a piler, I need the surface area to organize my papers visually!

What would you change about your own workspace? If I change something, my tower of junk might come unbalanced and fall.

What do you most love about your space? I get amazing light in here, and my windows face west looking at the Manhattan skyline. When the sun starts to set, the light has a magical golden glow that makes the entire space feel like a warm, fuzzy dream.

What inspires you? Great people who have done great things in their lives. One time I cried reading a book about the fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli. One time I cried when watching a documentary about the band the Pixies. One time I cried while watching the end of a triathlon. Other than making me cry far too much, these people inspire me to push myself harder, to work towards the best version of myself — be it designer, editor, daughter, friend, dog mom — possible.

How long have you worked from home? I have been making jewelry for about 12 years, the last 10 I’ve been doing it full-time. I have a sweet little workspace in my apartment, so I walk about 5 seconds to work!!

And where is home? I live in the old part of Tokyo. In this area, there are museums,Tokyo National University of Fine Arts, neighborhoods of craftsmen, and Japan ‘s biggest wholesale district. It’s a perfect location for working and I consider myself very lucky!

Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? Simple yet elegant! Well-made goods are not just useful but also beautiful. There is a long tradition in Japan of recognizing the perfection and beauty in things you use in everyday life. “Yo no Bi” as it is called, beauty in utility, is considered a very important value.  I get enjoyment out of being surrounded by “beautility”.

How do you keep your office organized? In my case, I don’t need to keep the workspace organized. So everything I think or find is important and has it’s place. Sometimes it’s waiting there for years and sometimes I can use it right away. Somehow all my work is connected and ideas and techniques that might have found there origins years ago in larger or more abstract works resurface. I really like that.

When you were setting up your home workspace what did you keep in mind? I wanted to fill the workspace with bright natural light.

Is there any piece of home work furniture you covet? I love Aeron chairs. The overall ergonomic design of the chair is great. And I especially like the adjustable height foot rest.

What is a desk accessory you can’t do without? I’m a note-taking nut, so paperweights and clips are indispensable. And, likely quite different from a desk accessory – Skype –  for staying close to my friends and customers  around the world even though I’m half a world away from most of them.

What would you change about your own workspace? I’m actually pretty satisfied with my workspace, but I have a great interest in feng shui. I’d like to completely redecorate my apartment based on feng shui.

What do you most love about your space? The workspace has a big window, and I can occasionally see the picture-book scenery.

What inspires you? The first thing that comes to mind is classical ballet. Costume, scenic art, music and etoiles are a huge source of inspiration. And I love to make snap shots of things. I always carry a little camera with me. I’m fascinated by patterns – on a leaf, an iron fence, stone wall, texture of a tree, water-rimples and so on, most of my work finds its origin there.

How long have you worked from home? And where is home? Ever since I can remember I wanted to be self-employed and work from home. To me this was the perfect combination of freedom, creativity and self expression while earning a living. First and foremost I define myself as a designer. I specialize in web design and as an autodidact have established some good programming skills throughout the years. This precious knowledge has come in handy when I discovered how much I love writing and as my passion for design and architecture took over I was eager to share this passion with the world and that is how Busyboo got started.

In addition, for the last 10 years my partner and I have been developing Shine, evolving from a web design studio to a company offering online marketing solutions for global high-tech companies – during all of this time we’ve been working from home. You will find us tucked away with our dogs in a quiet neighborhood, surrounded by green fields, oak trees and the sound of birds chirping in the background, since as much as I love the city I’ve always preferred to live and work with the countryside at my doorstep.

Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? I would define my style as eclectic since I am inspired from pretty much everything; whether it’s the Japanese style with its modern minimalism or the romantic touch of an English style landscape design.

How do you keep your office organized? I’m thinking here of the physical space but also your computer. Are there any particular programs you find really useful? In general I am a very organized person, and you can see it in my workplace as well, where almost everything I need is within reach. The only thing I struggle with is trying to cover the vast amount of design information out there, going over thousands of bookmarks that continue to grow rapidly every day. It’s amazing, just when you think you’ve got it under control new ones start to pop up.

When you were setting up your home office what do you keep in mind? I was guided by the thought that this will be the place where I will be spending most of my time so I better make it my own. It’s cozy yet practical with lots of books, music, magazines and notes everywhere. It’s my second favorite place at home, the first being my garden where I can relax every morning and start off my day with a positive approach to life and a freshly brewed cup of coffee.

Is there any piece of home office furniture you wish you had? Well, it’s kind of ironic, but I would love the Aeron chair.

What is a desk accessory you can’t do without? My graphics tablet and my 60GB Creative Zen Media Player.

What would you change about your own workspace? I remember I saw on the BBC Homefront TV show where Diarmuid Gavin designed a beautiful garden pavilion with a large open space, spreading out to its natural surroundings and blurring the boundaries between inside and outside – and I thought to myself this to me would be the perfect workspace.

What do you most love about your space? I love that I am surrounded by things that make me happy; the fact that I can lift my head and gaze at my favorite books, design magazines, photographs and the greenery outside my window or take a break and go outside to play with my dog Mikey, a beautiful blue eyed Siberian Husky.

What inspires you? People. Nature. Spirit. Form. Rediscovering the power of simple design.

How long have you worked from home? And where is home? Home is Toronto, Canada and I’ve worked from home since my son was born 15 years ago. I am a designer who is interested in the interchange between research and design and commerce and culture. I operate worldwide with partners, enterprises, manufacturers, communities, governments, and designers creating new kinds of design programs and product collections. My mobile studio network looks to combine the strengths of complimentary groups to build new linkages, new cultures and new ideas. Below is a shot of my studio in Guadeloupe.

“ Love, Freedom, Flow” at ICFF this year was the international debut of the
New Caribbean Design initiative (her Jamaica workspace is below). The developing world is one of the next design frontiers, producing goods that fuse quality with creativity beyond just low cost. For a long time, design in these places has been relegated to handicrafts and regional products. There is no point in artisans and craft production factories in the Caribbean competing with mass-produced goods. They can instead compete on the strengths of the product, by focusing on the upper end of the market through high quality materials, detailing, production and design.

A focus on producing unique regional hybrids that combine craft tradition and contemporary design process is the aim of New Caribbean Design. Through the push and pull of cross-cultural collaboration the group has balanced traditional cultural practice in the Caribbean and forward-looking design solutions. In contrast with the familiar presentations of Caribbean culture – souvenirs and resort experience – this collection presents something much more dynamic: a living breathing culture with a critical role in the global design marketplace. The pots below are part of the collection we launched at ICFF. They are designed by Stella Hackett for Hamilton’s Pottery in St Thomas, Barbados.

Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? Well, I would say that when I was a young designer I was inspired by and had a distinctly modernist aesthetic. Over time though, the real, messy world pushed its way into my pure and untouchable world. And I’m happier for it. I work collaboratively and inclusively with other designers, manufacturers both craft and otherwise, and, sometimes even with government agencies and development banks. Trying to answer all these diverse needs while creating products with integrity is sometimes a messy and uncertain business but I’ve found that this process produces very rich results. And, my austere and reduced aesthetic still manages to sneak in there too!

As a designer and curator of a mobile design studio how do you keep your office organized? I’m thinking here of the physical space but also your computer. Are there any particular programs you find really useful? Hmm. Good question. Frankly, I rely heavily on the search function on both my computers. It does seem that computers are not equipped to organize files in the traditional office sense and I have long given up trying to rationally organize things. And like most people now my computer files are a mash of the personal, the creative and the commercial.

Is there any piece of home office furniture you covet? Well I am already very happy with my Eames Aluminum Group Chair. I do covet the Aeron Chair though!

What is a desk accessory you can’t do without? Konstanin Grcic’s May Day Lamp and Sharpie Fine Line Pens.

What would you change about your own workspace? I’m quite happy with the current set up both at home and away. I like the flexibility of it – I’m available for both work and family – which is a juggling act at the best of times. If I could change anything I think it would be to build permanent design spaces in the places I work as a resource for the people that I work with.

What do you most love about your space? I love the mobility of my studio and I love that I can work in many spaces with many different people. Although difficult at times it has enriched my work and had a profound impact on how I think about design. I learned that people-centred design has a middle component, living between ethnography and interface. Hand manufacturing is the reality in much of the world, and designers, sitting at their desks sending off PDFs to unknown destinations, may be a modern paradigm, but ultimately a hollow one. I encourage designers to go and visit where their products are made, and, especially, with the people who make them!

What inspires you? Oh, just about everything. I love that the collisions of culture that are the basis of my work can strike a new balance between redundancy and relevance and explore the friction between the “preservationist” view of the handmade as intangible heritage and its real status as living tradition, and therefore, inherently and constantly innovating and adapting. And, I love the resourcefulness that you find in the most difficult and poorest of places and circumstances, and, that creativity still flourishes there.

How long have you worked from home? And where is home? I’ve worked from home since I left the fashion industry in 2001. We live in the Hollywood Hills near Laurel Canyon. My husband Jon works in the music industry doing A&R and as a marketing consultant and we share an office that had been converted from a 2 car garage and is attached to our mid-century post and beam home. I used to work in the house until I had Jonah, our almost 2 year old son. When it got too distracting to work with Jonah around, I re-did the converted office and moved in with Jon. His half of the space I painted black and hung his rock artwork and guitars on the walls. My half of the space is white. I haven’t gotten around to hanging anything up, but I kind of like it like that.

I run an interior design firm designing for both residential and commercial spaces, plus I publish a design blog called Design*ByProxy. Design*ByProxy was initially the name of a service I started through Susan Stewart Design. It gives clients an affordable option to get a room professionally designed by me. The client pays a flat rate per room and all the design is done thru the internet/email. They answer a questionnaire, measure their own space, send me digital pictures of their room and describe the design direction. I then provide a furniture floor plan, concept board that includes paint colors or wallpaper, furniture selection, window treatment idea and provide a shopping list with links of where the client can purchase the items.

Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? I’m hired by clients to help them realize their own aesthetic and ideals ranging in styles from Classic to Modern, all with a West Coast vibe (easy not fussy). When you look at Design*ByProxy blog, you really get to see what my aesthetic is: design that innovates and inspires by embracing simplicity, luxury and humor. A signature look of mine utilizes a mix of vintage and modern pieces.

As an interior designer with multiple clients how do you keep your office organized? I’m thinking here of the physical space but also your computer. Are there any particular programs you find really useful? I have big white binders for each client that holds all the paperwork (quotes, floor plans, swatches, invoices) divided into the rooms I’m designing. I keep them in a cabinet. I also have a “My Clients” folder in My Documents with sub-folders for each one. I work on 2 computers, a Mac and PC because some of the programs I use are only available on one platform. I use AutoCAD for Plan Drawings and Studio Designer for ordering on my PC. Then I use ArchiCAD and Google Sketch Up, both for 3D rendering on my Mac. I use Illustrator and Photoshop on both.

When you are designing a home office what do you keep in mind? Feng Shui and storage. I’m not a Feng Shui expert by any means, but I think in the office it is important to incorporate it’s principles as much as you can while keeping a visually pleasing design. I can always feel a space immediately that has bad feng shui.

Is there any piece of home office furniture you love? Yes, my Eames Aluminum Group Management Chair. Years ago I had a flea market find that looked cool, but ended up staining the muscles in my neck and was told by the chiropractor I needed a better chair to sit at while working on the computer. I ended up splurging on my dream chair (I was a student at the time).

What is a desk accessory you can’t do without? It’s not really a “desk accessory” but a “desktop” accessory. I use GoToMyPc.com and it’s really great. It’s a remote control software service that enables my assistant to access my computer from hers through the internet. She can log onto my computer remotely and do the proposals, orders and invoicing without having to be at my office.

What would you change about your own workspace? I love my husband, but it would be great to not have to share the space. I only say that because he talks A LOT….not to me, but on the phone to his clients. It can be a bit distracting.

What do you most love about your space? The view from my desk of our Japanese pine tree and pond in our courtyard and my husband’s company.

What inspires you? Nature, colors, art, architecture, people.

How long have you worked from home? This is my desk at our country home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. We bought the house in 2004, spent a year renovating it and have been working on the interiors ever since. Being an interior designer, designing my own house is torturous and I don’t think I will ever be finished! If I need to get work done during the weekend and I’m not out on the deck with my laptop, you can find me here. I mostly use the time away from my New York City office to look for inspiration and to come up with new ideas.

And where is home? Home from Monday – Friday afternoon is downtown New York City. I’ve lived in the same loft for over 20 years right on the Hudson River. We work from the loft too. But life is crazy in the city and after my husband and I had our two little girls we decided to get a country house near my sister in Pennsylvania. So Friday evening to Sunday evening our home is in the country. It’s a little old farmhouse that my husband and I lovingly renovated with the help of my sister’s husband, Glenn who is a contractor.

Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? I would say that my style is modern, fresh, clean happy and a wee bit quirky. I like things that can be cleaned off easily, I dont like too much clutter but I like that my home reflects who I am. I get enjoyment out of being surrounded by things I have found around the world or even in my back yard from local garage sales or flea markets.

As an interior designer with multiple clients how do you keep your office organized. The New York apartment pictured above seems typical of your work – strong bursts of color against a fairly minimal backdrop of white? We specialize in one style – we are not an office that does traditional through to contemporary – we stick to simple happy modern – this helps keep our samples to a minimum and has helped clean up things a lot in the NYC office. Over the years I have honed my style so I dont want fabrics or other samples lying around that I dont intend to use.   Two years ago we got rid of all our brochures and binders and it was such a relief to “clean house” Everything is online anyway so we are good at bookmarking our favorite sites and pieces.

We keep all our fabric samples in drawers – there are 16 big drawers all color coded. Our tiles and other materials we keep in drawers too for easy access. We have big boxes that we keep sample in on projects we are currently working on and its always great to see how all the materials start coming together. All other material is kept in giant client binders – these binders contain everything from plans and elevations to color inspiration and specific furniture pieces. The binders are evolving constantly as we work on the projects.

Are there any particular computer programs you find really useful? I used to have interns do weekly color copies of magazine inspirations and I kept them in a giant lateral file but now we use Evernote to organize all my inspirational images as well as furniture pieces that I really dont want to forget. So now when I am looking for something its such a breeze to find.

When you are designing a home office what do you keep in mind? I keep in mind that peoples lives are busy and we dont always have time to put things away – this means that a stack of bills on the desk top may be reality. So a nice paper tray could be a smart investment. I try and reduce clutter by having upper cabinets that are easy to reach from a seated position that can store unattractive real life things you need at your desk. Also essential is a good “box box file” drawer right next to the desk. Top drawer for essentials including check books, good hand cream and lip balm , second drawer for stationary and stamps and the bottom drawer for filing monthly bills. You also need good lateral files for all the other things that need filing like taxes and investment, school and other info.

An attractive trash can under the desk never hurts . Its always nice to have a beautiful cup holder for pens and stationary and a beautiful stapler, tape holder and paper clip holder. Recently I have started working with personal organizers so that my clients can have perfect tabs on all their files holders and just the right drawer dividers.

Is there any piece of home office furniture you covet? I love the Airia desk (and seriously not because its for Herman Miller) and I adore the big e15 table especially in yellow (above). I dream of having a giant desk like it. I love my vintage saarinen chair that I have in my PA house. I had it reupholstered in a brilliant magenta – it makes the perfect desk chair.
What is a desk accessory you can’t do without? A cup of coffee in my right hand. I would really love to get a set of “Anything” desk accessories (below).

What would you change about your own workspace? Well, my little spot in PA is kinda perfect for me but my office in New York needs help. In New York we sit at long white counters and although I can look out the window at the river from where I sit, I would love to have a freestanding table to work from. I would love to get a giant table maybe vintage or Baroque looking and have it shop finished in a crazy color – like fluorescent red. Then everything around it would be white. A giant inspiration board is the second thing on my wish list. My little space in PA feels personal and has an aesthetic, my New York space is about function and lacks personal style.

What do you most love about your space? Well, my space in my PA house is very special to me – it’s full of fun little memories because all the pictures on the wall were given to me either by the artist themself or by friends. I love looking out the window and daydreaming. There are always bunnies out there in the spring and summer and it’s so ridiculously idyllic that it makes me smile. I love my comfy magenta chair and the pop of color the rolling file add. I love that I can go out and pick some flowers from the garden and put them on the desk. In the pictures are peonies from my front yard.

What inspires you? Anything bright and happy. I love seeing unexpected color combinations. I love seeing things that are out of scale – an image of something small that has been enlarged or visa versa. I love animal objects. The beach is my favorite place in the world and inspires me. I love my girl’s (Mia Soleil and Saskia Luna) art work. I love designing with my husband Jaime. I am inspired by very smart people who are also creative and who don’t take themselves too seriously. Collaborations with clients get my heart racing. Graffitti and urban wall art is beautiful and surprising.

Images: The PA office: Jaime Vinas, the New York apartment: Eric Laignel

How long have you been working from home? I’ve been working from home full time for about the past seven years, before this I had been working in a couple different design studios. My first home/studio was a studio apartment, which became more and more challenging because there was not any type of separation between anything. Now we live in a two bedroom house, the second bedroom acts as my studio space

What challenges did you face transitioning from working in a design firm to a home based office? The biggest drawback for me about working from home versus in a design firm is the lack of communication or feedback while you are working on project. More and more I miss that aspect of a studio. Dirk Fowler, another designer and friend of mine who also works from home often send images of what we are working on back and forth to get feedback or advice from each other.

Working in a home setting, it’s easy to get distracted. Do you have any tips for staying focused on projects? I try to stick to a routine, but will be the first to admit I can have a hard time doing that. My wife has been back in school the last couple years, so she is often working late, so I’ll often do the same. When I’m stuck or in the thinking process during a project I tend to work in chunks of time and find myself walking around the block to take a break. I think the distractions of working in a firm versus working at home probably balance out, in the long run I feel I have less distractions. I do miss the commute to work a little bit, I used to walk to work and that was perfect for starting the day. Now if I have any errands or anything like that I typically do them first thing in the morning, so that  becomes my commute.

Is there anything you would like to change in your workspace? As you can see I keep things pretty sparse and I often have the tendency to want to get rid of things rather than acquire them. I’m happy to have my own room to work out of versus having everything in the studio apartment. We also have a small room below the house that acts as the poster storage and shipping area, our shipping area used to be the kitchen in the studio apartment. I would like to try working from a space outside my house, maybe a shared space with a couple other designers. We’ll see, it hasn’t been a priority yet.

And don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten all of you readers who participated via Twitter and shared your favourite entries throughout the month. We’ll be going through the archives of tweets collected and will announce a reader winner of an Apple iPad early next week too, so keep your eyes open.

Thanks again to each and everyone who entered this first, but not last, Unplggd’s The Perfect Workspace contest!

See all The Perfect Workspace submissions here.”

How long have you worked from home? And where is home? I’ve worked from home since early 2001 when we bought our 1959 ranch house in Eagle Rock (a Northeast Los Angeles neighborhood). My work is a body of suspended wire mobiles that were inspired by watching my studio get built. As the electrical wire was unwound from spools there existed this amazing tension that both remembered the experience of being tightly wound on the spool, but was also open to new formations. I became mesmerized by this simple medium that reflected the whole of life’s experiences so inherently.

My clients often tell me that they want to live with sculpture but had found it hard to place large weighty objects in their homes. My work is accessible for most any domestic settings. So the phrase working from home always makes me smile, since I want my sculpture to “work AT home” as well.

My other work is Broodwork: Creative Practice and Family Life. After having my daughter four years ago, I got even more curious about the practices of other creative people and how they organized their lives as they parented. This eventually lead to founding Broodwork with Iris Anna Regn. Our research showed that there was a large unnamed community of creative practitioners who found an unexpected perspectival shift after becoming parents. It wasn’t that their work took a massive shift, i.e. designing kids clothes or writing “kid rock”, but that their output reflected their new status as the responsible generation with an increased social consciousness and a heady optimism of investment in the future. The work was also frequently was done in small increments of time in home spaces to be nearer their kids.

Describe your studio space. How is that space connected to the rest of the house? Do you share the space with anyone? My studio is a 840 sq. ft. two-storey studio building at the back of our lot designed by architects Jack Burnett-Stewart and Julia Strickland. It is connected to the main house by a meandering decomposed granite path. The first floor of the building is my messy physical working space. It has 11 foot tall exposed joist ceilings, white walls, and a cement floor. The space under the stairs was designed as two four foot wide shelves that slide on rollers so I can store a lot of work and supplies under there. My husband designed a track lighting system for the first floor that incorporates regular track and gooseneck track. Since my sculptures are designed to fit into the particular architecture of the site, the gooseneck track really helps me figure out how the shadows will occur. Natural light comes in through double eight foot tall glass doors.

The second floor is the writing, thinking, reading and meetings space. It has a much more domestic feel with birch floors, lots of windows, a peaked ceiling and is shamelessly decorated with books. It is the truest respite space I have ever had and I adore it. I can feel my breathing slow down as I settle in up here. My husband sometimes telecommutes, so he has a Built Studio table that serves as his desk on that level with a nice docking system set up for his Mac.

It is quite wonderful to have a separate building to go to, but one that is only 100 feet away.

How do you keep your office/studio organized? I’m thinking here of the physical space but also your computer. Are there any particular programs you find really useful? In terms of organizing my different job hats, I’ve separated the different types of work into the different physical spaces. There is no computer in my studio. My work desk and Mac is in the guest bedroom of the main house, so that’s where I answer email, fiddle with Photoshop, work on websites, etc. I maintain my personal site from that computer using an old Adobe product. The Broodwork site is done with indexibit, which is great. Better still is that I share responsibilities for the Broodwork site with my co-founder, Iris Regn and with Juliette Bellocq. Juliette’s company, Handbuilt Studio, designed the site.

I listen to music constantly, so one of my favorite technologies is a system called Squeezebox that uses iTunes to play through any stereo or computer in the main house or studio. Totally brilliant. I should get stock for all the people I tell about it. Most phone calls are done from my iPhone, so I can be anywhere and am often in the backyard. I’m too honest to say my studio is organized, but I do know where the orange 12 gauge copper conduit is most of the times.

Is there any piece of furniture you covet for your studio? I’d love a two-set Celeste sofa. And I need to get more organized tool and gadget storage.

What would you change about your own workspace? Nothing really. Although sculpture takes up a lot of square footage, and it would be nice to have more even more space, I wouldn’t trade any of my green space for concrete.

What do you most love about your space? When we first looked at our place I fell in love immediately with the backyard. The original owners had been arborists, so the lot had about 20 mature fruit trees. Since my work has always been inspired by doodles and patterning, finding exquisite patterns in roots or branches or leaf shapes bring out the happy geek in me.

I also love going up to the second floor of the studio and looking out the big windows into the trees. I love the huge doors that make for easy transportation of sculpture and bring that garden into the studio. But most of all I love how my proximity to green space keeps me honest. I am constantly reminded of the inherent superior elegance of Nature. What I am striving for in my work is the sort of balanced tension that Nature accomplishes. Someone recently said my work was like looking at nature after man and I’m still processing that idea.

How do you strike a balance between your work and your family-life? Balance is a funny thing. I make suspended works that rely completely on balance. I often think this is because finding balance is one of the hardest things to do, so the most rewarding to achieve in any means. When Iris and I created Broodwork we wanted to provide a showcase for the intensely fabulous work that was being made in the midst of the demands of family life. We figured someone had found a good balance, but to be honest, I can’t say I’ve found it. I have an amazing husband who happily shares parenting with me, and who picks up the extra bits if I am at the edge of a deadline. I do the same for him. I guess ample communication is a big part of the balancing act.

Many of the creative people I know in LA didn’t grow up here, so our families are in other locales. I know it is a cliché, but it really does take a village and part of Broodwork is networking with other families. That is why our exhibits often involve programming at least one family-oriented event, so families can meet one another.

What inspires you? Things that reach out like an arm, a branch, a building, or an idea. Travel. Honesty. Beauty. My daughter’s laugh.

How would you describe your workspace? What is the design aesthetic? How does that impact your work? I am drawn to a modern, functional Scandinavian style and a streamlined aesthetic. I also am enamored of Bay Area design—the rustic modern architecture of Joseph Esherick, the organic shapes of potter Edith Heath, the paintings of Richard Diebenkorn. Also a lover of New England understatement.  My workspace is typically my living room.  My husband has appropriated the office as his own, which is fine with me as I prefer the living room, which gets much better natural light.

Does anyone else use your office? Since the living room in our home is part of a great room (which also includes the dining room and kitchen), there is a lot of flow in and around me when I am working.

How do you organize the space? Almost everything I do for Remodelista is stored and organized on my laptop, so I don’t have a huge organizational system for my workspace.  I do have a lot of shelter periodicals that I peruse which I store near my chair in a large basket.  I also have several systems for storing images on my laptop and for bookmarking blogs, because so much of our work revolves around finding and presenting beautiful imagery.

What impact do you think color has on a workspace? Most of the color in our home comes from seasonal flowers and branches we bring inside, as well as from art.  My affinity for Scandinavian design translates into clean-lined, simple spaces with lots of white and warm woods.   I like a workspace that is light and calming, without an excess of color.

What desk accessory can’t you do without? For sheer necessity, my laptop. I also love pencils; my favorites are from Cedar Pointe; they’re made of California incense cedar with a black eraser. Canoe in Portland, Oregon, offers them for $5 per dozen.

Is there a piece of furniture you’d love to replace? We are currently looking for a new dining room table.  I love our current table (pictured below), but it only seats eight for dinner comfortably; we’d like one that seats at least ten.

What inspires you? The low-key modernist architecture of outer Cape Cod, where Marcel Breuer, Eero Saarinen, Walter Gropius, and Serge Chermayeff built vacation houses. (My first job was cleaning Saarinen’s house on Long Pond.)  Also, the spectacular de Young Museum in San Francisco by Herzog & de Meuron, a trip to the furniture and home design department of Liberty of London, the deceptive simplicity of Jasper Morrison’s designs (his Glass Family drinking glasses are genius), and the Bloomsbury aesthetic.

You see so many great workspaces. Is there one that really stands out for you? I love this compact office by Brooklyn-based architects Delson or Sherman Architects.; the wrap-around built-in shelves and the built in desk and cabinetry, the window next to the desk, the Eames office chair.

How do you manage a balance between work and the rest of your life? Some days there is more balance than others, but thanks to several new technologies, we can each work remotely, which helps our editors work around the demands of family and home.  Skype, Twitter, Google Docs, the iPhone, and the fact that we can all edit a post through the same online system allow us to work from Brooklyn, San Francisco, Napa and Mill Valley simultaneously. Remodelista is a truly virtual enterprise: after several years of working together, we finally converged in one place (for the first time) at a presentation for the flagship Design Within Reach store in SoHo, just last year.

How long have you worked from home? Since February 1. And where is home? The Meatpacking district (14th between 8th and 9th.) What do you do? I am an interior designer.  We work on predominantly residential work at the moment but we have also done contract work such as restaurants, retail, and office spaces.  I was an associate at the Rockwell Group for 7 years so I have a strong background in hospitality.

Six years ago I opened a store called Kimberly Hall Kids, specializing in children’s’ furnishings and interior design.  I had a small storefront and office on 21st Street and tried to pull off running the store (which did a lot of custom and one-off work) as well as my interior design business.  It quickly became too much and I tried to expand accordingly.

In the end, one was diluting the other so I decided to close the store and focus exclusively on interior design work. My office remained in the same space until this year when my husband and I bought a new apartment.  We had been living in an 800 square foot rental with 2 dogs, 2 young children, and the 2 of us. It was time for a change.  The market was right to purchase and we found a 1500 square foot apartment.It had a 300 square foot wing at the back that was perfect for my office. It had high ceilings and I knew I could get most of what I needed in if I went vertical (a favorite trick of mine.)  It was a great solution for us as it gave us a way to afford the apartment, reduce my “rent” and I now have more time at home to spend with my family.

I gutted the space, which had been the apartments kitchen (I still do not have a kitchen, for the record) including all of the walls and ceiling.  I really wanted a classic loft feeling and by exposing the brick and all of the thick, old rafters, I have really achieved the feeling I was looking for.  It was also, thankfully, the most economical solution.

Describe your style? My style is definitely eclectic, although I’d love to come up with a new word for that. I love almost all “styles” but get most excited by mixing styles and periods. We have done quite a few traditional homes with very contemporary interiors. I look at each job as a challenge to give the client what they are looking for and to personally challenge myself to come up with ideas and solutions that I have not come up with before.  I tend to use a lot of color and incorporate art and other objects of personal significance in my interiors. Sometimes I have gotten the most exciting results using items that I could never have imagined fitting into a project.

As an interior designer with multiple clients how do you keep your office organized? I’m thinking here of the physical space but also your computer. Are there any particular programs you find really useful? We organize our projects into binders and I LOVE plastic page protectors!  I should buy some stock. We also have a fantastic program that synthesizes all aspects of the design process from a business standpoint.  It is called Studio Designer and interfaces accounting, purchasing, contacts, etc. into a single program.

I currently use a Mac but when I used a PC, I loved Outlook. I wish the MAc version was up-to-snuff, but so far I can’t seem to get it to do everything I want it to.

Regarding the physical space, we have it lined, stacked and otherwise filled, floor-to-ceiling with reference materials.  It is clearly much easier to find information since the advent of the internet but I still like to keep hard copies of many of my favorites. We also have a fantastic materials library that we keep in bins that we load onto Ikea Expedit bookshelves. These are my favorites as I am a big fan of cubbies as opposed to shelves. I just find that it keeps things neater. We have literally thousand of fabric samples that arranged by color and sometimes type which makes it much easier to put schemes together than going shopping every time.

When you are designing a home office what do you keep in mind? I think it is imperative to have good “cord management”, especially in a home office.  Having a jumble of cords is not only unsightly, it is extremely frustrating to problem solve if you don’t know what you are looking at.  We make sure that we always place outlets in an appropriate location in relation to the work surface.  I also find it very important to have a “place for everything” (as my mother used to say.)  I especially like mail sorters which have a variety of slots.  I label each slot with a project name or other type of category and anytime I have something related to that particular subject, I just slide it in there.  It’s sort of an interim holding zone for paper that have not yet been filed into binders or files.

Obviously lighting is extremely important in a home office and I make sure to include adjustable task lighting in every project as well as a sliding keyboard tray which alleviates back and posture problems.

File cabinets are also a necessary evil but I try to make them attractive by choosing all white or even sometimes colored.  Bisley offers the best colors.

Is there any piece of home office furniture you covet? I have always coveted a glass-topped desk on horses. Unfortunately, the nature of my work (or perhaps the way I work!) will never allow this but I keep dreaming that someday I will have an impeccable, clean and clear workspace with nothing on it but a computer and a phone.  Also, like in all of the magazine photo shoots, there will be no cords attached to the computer or the phone.

I already have the item that I most covet and that is an Aeron chair. Several years ago I herniated a disc and this was the only place I felt comfortable.  I slept many a night in that chair!

What is a desk accessory you can’t do without? I love low, acrylic trays for organizing small objects on my desk.  I put my stapler, tape dispenser, paperclip cup, electric pencil sharpener as well as post-it notes clustered into these trays so that I always know where something is when I need it and things don’t get scattered all over the work surface.  I also have a tiny stack of plastic drawers that house my binder clips, push pins, extra post-its, and digital photo paraphernalia such as card readers and memory cards.

What would you change about your own workspace? If I had the space, I would like a “return” on both sides of my desk.  This would allow me to keep the center surface clear while allowing me to keep my “piles” organized to either side.  I also wish there was a way to input USB devices into the computer in a neat way besides those “hubs” you get from Staples. I can’t tell you how many of those things I have velcro’d to the shelves above my desk in an effort to alleviate the jumble.

What do you love most about your space? I love the contrast between the rough shell with the brick and wood and the bright, white, minimal, desk surfaces and bookshelves.  I also especially love my FLOR cow-print carpet tiles (below).  It adds the playful touch that I needed in the space and is extremely practical for spills, stains, and possible expansion!

What inspires you? I love to solve problems. For me, being an interior designer is a blessing and a curse. I am able to create wonderful looking, functional spaces but it is very difficult to turn it off. Everywhere I look, I am evaluating what I like, what I don’t like and how I would improve something.

I also love to read and to look at design magazines and books. I am constantly clipping images and creating image files on my computer. By having this comprehensive visual library, I am able to communicate to my client (and to myself) a vision for each particular project. I create concept image boards that are an impression of the vibe of the project. I find that if these are carefully edited, they become a very accurate “visual blueprint” of the project. I may keep a page from a magazine of a room that I hate but it has a fabulous button detail that I will want to remember for a future project. I can sometimes build an entire project out of a detail like that.

As a visual artist (I studied painting and photography) I am especially aware of proportion and composition. Since so may of my projects incorporate disparate items, I use this knowledge to make them look cohesive and balanced.  This is, for me, the inspiration and the challenge. How do you make something successful from nothing?

How would you describe your home and how long have you lived there? I live with my partner David, who is a stylist and our three dogs – Otis and Oliver are Weimaraners, and Avard is an elderly Italian greyhound. We have lived in our house for almost five years. It’s a renovated late-Victorian terrace in Surry Hills, a vibrant inner-city suburb of Sydney.

Where is your home office? How would you describe the aesthetic?  At the very top of the house – as far away as possible from mischievous, barking dogs. My aesthetic? Confused. The home office is a work in progress. It’s a small space so it has to be kept ruthlessly tidy.

How much time do you spend in your home office? What kind of work do you find yourself doing there? It depends on the changing demands of my life. I work full-time at the moment, so I try to keep home-office time to a minimum. It’s mostly emails – particularly to friends and family overseas – but I seem to spend far too long paying bills and generally keeping house. I’m an iTunes obsessive and I love searching for music that I have no intention of buying. I tend to research any articles I’m writing at home and I wrote my one and only book (The Accidental Foodie, Murdoch Books) there.

Does anyone else use your home office? Yes – David uses it in much the same way I do.

What item from your desktop can you not do without? Large paperclips, the biggest size. Small ones drive me nuts. Do you sense an obsessive nature?

What is your favourite piece of furniture? In the office it would be the Thomas Jacobsen desk. Elsewhere in our house it’s the bright orange Thonet dining chairs.

You’re exposed to such amazing design through your role on Belle. Is there a piece of furniture that you covet? Not as many as you might think. In my job I see many beautiful and desirable things, but the quantity diminishes the appeal. That said, I could happily share my life with the limited-edition Egg chair in chocolate brown leather.

What inspires you? Knowledge gained from past experience and the opportunity and unpredictability of the future.

Photograph by Steve Baccon, courtesy of Belle Magazine

How long have you worked from home? And where is home? I established Kelly Brown Interiors in Richmond, VA a little over a year ago with the intention of working from home. It’s hard to believe my office has come this far within just a year! Prior to moving to Richmond, VA I was living in Los Angeles working for a high-end residential designer. After moving to Richmond, I decided to take my BFA of Fine Arts in Interior Design degree plus 8 years of professional design practice and branch out on my own. It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Describe your style? It’s a mix of modern and traditional, high and low. I never want a client walking into a room I’ve designed and define it as a particular decade or time period.

As an interior designer with multiple clients how do you keep your office organized? There are 4 things that keep me organized at all times.

1) I swear by these clear plastic see-through string envelopes. Every project I start immediately gets one of these with a label identifying the job. I keep fabric memos, finish samples, paint swatches and tearsheets of furniture selections in them. They’re within arms reach on my desk and when I need to leave the office I can quickly grab the project envelopes I need for the day, whether I’m headed to the client’s house or the design center.

2) My iPhone. Need I say more!

3) The MoblieMe “Cloud”.

4) And even with all of the clever gadgets and great software out there I still covet my…Franklin Covey Planner. I never leave my office without it.

Is there any piece of home office furniture you covet? And what is a desk accessory you can’t do without? Hands down, the furniture piece I covet most is my Humanscale Liberty Chair. And it’s not technically a desk accessory but, I reach for it everyday and without it I can’t do my job. It’s my trusty Stanley MaxSteel 25′ Tape Measure.

What would you change about your own workspace? More storage! Sometimes the physical constraints of a room limit how much storage you can get out of a particular space. As my interior design business grows, so does my vendor library of catalogs, binders and fabric samples (they eat up lots of space!). I have room to expand for about another year. After that I’m going to need to start looking for a commercial office space! That’s my next business goal.

What do you most love about your space? The paint color (Mythic Paint‘s Heather Heights #197-2), the incredible southern sunlight that bathes the room just so and beyond that the view of a 100 year old gumball tree out my 2nd story window.

What inspires you? It’s always changing with the little nuances of everyday life but if I had to narrow it down to right now: Dwell Magazine, (the now defunct) Domino Magazine (I have every single issue, stored safely in the orange magazine holders – within arms reach), 1stdibs.com, lonnymag.com, Kelly Wearstler and Darryl Carter (Both for very different reasons: the first for her daring use of color and the latter for his restrained use of color). The city of Richmond and all the creative energy it harbors inspires me on a daily basis. It’s the juxtaposition of young and old – hipster, slightly disheveled college students set against a backdrop of the disciplined vernacular of turn-of-the-century buildings. That always gets me. And right now, this very minute – the changing of the seasons. The bursts of intense yellow and vibrant magenta. The buds of lime green swaying in the wind and creamy white petals scattered on the ground.

How would you describe your workspace? What is the design aesthetic? I love my desk (pictured above) which is a wooden top that I had for years when I lived in Japan placed atop some recently acquired French metal industrial trestles.  As much as I consider myself a minimalist and have a house that is fairly clutter free and simple, my desk is usually piled high with magazines and papers. My first job was in a production company in Japan where the way to demonstrate creativity was to have a desk with piles of interesting stuff and images and I don’t think I have ever stopped working that way. Once a week, I go through everything and clear it up then the piles begin again.

Does anyone else use your office? I’m afraid I am quite territorial. My husband works from home a lot and we each have our separate offices and respect each other’s space and it seems to work well.

How do you organize the space? My office is basically my desk and some shelves where I file papers in simple wooden file holders from Ikea. I also use large, natural grass baskets for storing magazines; they look good and can be easily moved around.

What impact do you think color has on a workspace? I spend my day looking at so many images daily, that great light is essential.  I love an all-white space mixed with natural tones, grey stone colors and textures such as rough beige linen. That said, I would like to paint one wall of an otherwise white space this Farrow & Ball’s Down Pipe grey (pictured above).

What desk accessory can’t you do without? My original 1227 Anglepoise “salvaged” from my father’s office. I also love Muji gel ink pen (pictured below) which I stock up on whenever I am in New York or London.

Is there a piece of furniture you’d love to replace? There is nothing I would like to replace however I love coming across a great find whether it be a chair in a garage sale or a piece of vintage furniture in a shop (which is how I found my current desk chair and the trestles). Those are the times I find myself adding pieces to the home.

What inspires you? We moved from the city to the Napa Valley over three years ago and being surrounded by such great natural beauty is pretty compelling. Being able to get on my bike and cycle on a country lane and see the seasons change is very poetic. I am a forager and invariably haul a branch or some fallen lemons ( or whatever is in season) back home to display. It’s a creative outlet in a way.

You see so many great workspaces. Is there one that really stands out for you? I have been thinking about this Japanese house recently by architects, Takaharu and Yui Tezuka and how for me an office really only needs a desk, some bookshelves and good natural light. An office along the lines of this bedroom (with shelving instead of bunks and a window to the ground) would work perfectly for me.

How do you manage a balance between work and the rest of your life? Since I work at home on the computer all day it is very tempting to be online the whole time. Multi-tasking is great but I am making an effort to close my computer when my children return from school even if it is only for 30 minutes so I can give them my undivided attention. The nature of this work is endless so being able to close the computer and do others things is really healthy.

When you’re not in the garden where are you working? In my car! My bedroom, the home office (which is a converted garage in the backyard). Everywhere. I try to catch as much of every moment as I can.

How do you organize your workspace? Once again this has to be on the fly! In my car I carry a gardening kit with me, a few kits actually. And I have my office in our studio/garage. I also write all my jobs out on a chalk-board door and have files on each client.

What inspires you? I think pure color inspires me. Growing up in South Africa surrounded by so much natural beauty definitely influences me. As well as seeing the kids taking things in and the enthusiasm with which they do.

What piece of technology or tools most helps you in your work? In the garden it’s my Felco pruners and my knee-high shovel. And in the office it’s my new labeling machine. It’s a huge help sorting things out. And my little Apple computer – it’s the brains of it all.

If you could change your home workspace what would you do? I have a vision of my workspace having big clear glass-sliding doors onto the garden and half of the workspace would be set up for propagation – high table tops with perfect lighting. As well as storage under tables in mesh shelves. A little modern/ Victorian greenhouse effect! On the other half there would be a desk and beautiful rug and storage, lots of bookshelves. I could go on and on!

What and who inspires you? The Bioneers and so many people who have been keynote speakers there. Kenny Ausubel, my little boy of course, the Venice Learning Garden, Christa Tippet – on NPR- interviews of importance! Cooking shows-I love KCRW’s Good Food and also anything with Jamie Oliver in it.

Photo credit: Larry Hirshowitz

Where do you work? Describe the space. How would you define your aesthetic? I’m a minimalist for sure. Currently my desk is sharing space in my bedroom, but it’s a fairly big bedroom. I have a sizable desk, and the computer takes up a fairly small footprint. It’s a beautiful, all white, slightly glossy top, which feels like a big white board or canvas. There is a large window that looks out into a nice courtyard in the condo complex, which has a calming water feature.

You’re moving house at the moment. What would be your ideal home workspace? Will you have that in the new place? I am moving. My girlfriend and I are moving into a traditional old Victorian in San Francisco, and I can’t wait. It has high 12-foot ceilings and beautiful hardwood floors. We opted for a two-bedroom space, and the second bedroom will be my new office. I have high hopes for this being my ideal workspace. I plan to set up another work area for some print work (with some photos and maybe some more traditional print work) and really anything I get excited about. (Below: “My New Toy” by Besim Mazhiqi from Tom’s Level & Tap site)

With all those different hats – designer, curator, photographer – how do you organize your day? Well, with the day job I do my best to front load any of my curating work in the morning, either before I get into the office or during the commute. I’ve setup a few systems online to help keep the time requirement down, but it’s an evolving process. It’s always a balancing act though, as Facebook is my primary focus and is not really a 9-5 day job. Recently my photography has been suffering, as I haven’t been able to get out and shoot nearly as much as I would like. I have an embarrassingly large camera and film collection that’s gathering dust in the cabinet. (Below: ‘Meta’ by Tom Watson)

Are there practical things you’ve done to organize your workspace – both your office/desk and the virtual workspace on your computer? I’m diligent about cleaning things up at the end of almost every day, both in the physical world and on my computer. I let things get messy, throw pictures around on my desk and save plenty of files to my desktop as I work; but, before I close the computer and call it a day, I file everything digitally and clean up the desk before I’m done. If I don’t, my mind ends up far too cluttered and I struggle getting things done the next day.

What inspires you? Ah, everyone always says “everything” here, and they’re right, but in general, simple, clever things inspire me. A photo a very few objects, well-lit, framed perfectly and with clear intent always makes me smile. I love finding a beautiful interaction in a new space as well. Recently in mobile design on the iPhone, the “Pull down to Refresh” interaction has started to become a standard, and it’s been fun to watch it develop. People were constantly pulling and pushing the list; someone realized this and took advantage of it in a way that felt incredibly intuitive. I know I’m blown away by something when I think, “Damn, I wish I had thought of that.”

I’ve been inspired by all of the submissions to Simple Desktops as well. I setup the site with a limited set of restrictions (no gradients, drop shadows, “bling”, words, etc.) and am constantly impressed by how creative people have been within those limits. Limits really do provide the perfect kindling for creativity.

Francesca Connolly works from her brownstone in Brooklyn Heights that she shares with her husband and three children. She is the east coast member of the four-woman team that edits Remodelista – the go-to site for sophisticated renovators. Look out for our interviews with the rest of the Remodelista team over the next few weeks.

Connolly and her husband restored their down-at-the-heels brownstone with the help of architect Steven Harris. She is well acquainted with the burgeoning design scene in Brooklyn; she admires local lighting designer David Weeks and shops at local stores such as Layla. And she works on Remodelista from her dining table. No home office for this award-winning blogger.

How would you describe your workspace? How does it impact your work? I work at the dining room table. The space is light bright, uncluttered, and centrally located.

Does anyone else use your office? Everyone uses everything. I have no privacy.

You see so many great workspaces. Is there one that really stands out for you? Architects always have the best offices. They typically use inexpensive materials to create genius storage and work areas. Steven Harris Architects has a great office on the street level in Tribeca with floor to ceiling windows. They use the front of the space as a gallery for art exhibits making the space multi-functional, and engaging the local community.

How do you organize the space? I constantly try to eliminate clutter. I’m not super organized, but I know where everything is.

What impact do you think color has on a workspace? I prefer a white space as a backdrop for all the designs and colors I am looking at all day.

What desk accessory can’t you do without? A lamp and a notepad. Even though everything is done on the computer, I still scribble notes to myself.

Is there a piece of furniture you’d love to replace? I can’t genuinely say I have a need for it, but there is this steel base and oak top table (below) from Ochre that is on my wish list.

What inspires you? I have a background in textiles, so I am a bit of a fabric connoisseur.  Because we live in Brooklyn, I have an affinity for a bit of urban glamour (a sequined pillow from Liberty of London, for instance). I like streamline upholstered furniture but can’t resist covering pieces in subtle florals, stripes, or velvets.

How do you manage a balance between work and the rest of your life? Working at home allows me to be in in easy contact with my family. I love being around for all the constant coming and going of children. It helps that having grown up in close quarters with two brothers, I have a great ability to tune things out when necessary.

With healthcare top of mind right now it seemed timely to include an interview with Jay Parkinson, the co-founder of Future Well. Parkinson is a pediatrician and preventive medicine specialist with a masters in public health from Johns Hopkins. He works from his apartment in Brooklyn and hopes to make the country not just healthier but also happier.

First tell us about Future Well. The site is only a few months old and like a lot of start-ups you’re working from home. How much time do you spend in your home office? The Future Well is a creative firm that marries the worlds of design and health. We identify creative opportunities within the health space and design beautiful solutions that positively impact health and happiness. Sometimes we identify the opportunity and find the right partners to execute it and sometimes we build it ourselves. Other times, we help guide clients so the product/service is simple, elegant, and wrapped up with a business strategy that leverages their core competencies.

Health needs products and services that make optimizing our health and happiness fun, easy, and, most importantly, simple. This applies to to the traditional healthcare industry as well as this new consumer space we’re calling health creation. So we work with some traditional companies as well as companies who are looking to enter the consumer health space.

We launched The Future Well in the beginning of February after I left Hello Health and Grant Harrison left Humana as VP of Innovation. Scott Switzer, the co-founder of Open X is our third partner.

I actually spend a ton of time in my home working on my laptop. In fact, it’s by far the unhealthiest thing I do in my life. I want to be active as I work. Just think if we could replace sitting with moderate activity! So many people sit for 8 hours staring at glowing rectangles. It’s really a public health problem. What if we could replace just one of those 8 hours with activity? Our nation would shed billions of pounds!

How would you describe your workspace? What is the design aesthetic? I’m a minimalist and don’t want to have any more space than I really need. If I don’t use something on a weekly basis, it doesn’t exist in my home or office. I’d much rather buy experience than things. And I have this thing for symmetry. So I feel a bit weird buying two of everything, but I like the balance. My space also has to be bright and happy. The natural lighting has to be magical and blanket the most important parts of a room.

I also love photography. I consider myself a photographer so I tend to hang photos I’ve taken of my friends or people I love. And I can’t let go of my roots. I grew up in rural Missouri and my grandfather had a zoo of taxidermy in his trophy room– so I convinced him to give me a few of them. I have a javelina and a reedbuck. I also a dog and don’t want him sitting home alone for hours on end. So I really enjoy working from my home and don’t see us getting an office space anytime soon. We’d all like to keep the structure of The Future Well as decentralized as possible. Nowadays, so many things can be done virtually. I think the definition of “workspace” is significantly changing.

Does anyone else use your home office? Does my dog count? He uses it as a play space but only when I’m trying to get serious work done. Scott and I sometimes meet here to do some work, but that’s rare.

How do you organize the space? Since I don’t have many things and mostly work only on my MacBook, I try to arrange a room to maximize open space. I have a long and narrow Brooklyn apartment so furniture is arranged to feel like I have more open space than I really do. Many people have walked into my apartment and asked if I just moved in!

What impact do you think color has on a workspace? There are happy, productive colors and sad, distracting colors. The color of a workspace should surely be designed for happiness– because productivity and creativity stem from happiness.

What desk accessory can’t you do without? I’m such a minimalist, I don’t even have a desk! So I’d have to say my MacBook. But next to my sofa I have two Bisley file cabinets where I hide things when I’m not using them. They’re beautiful little storage pieces that hold more than they should. I have two white ones next to my bed as well. When you live in a small space, creative storage is key. I couldn’t live without those Bisley’s cleaning up the clutter of my space.

Is there a piece of furniture you’d love to replace? I’d love to replace my sofa as my primary workplace. I’m on a mission this weekend to find a standing desk, drafting table, or maybe even a pulpit!

What inspires you? People who design elegantly simple things in response to questioning the status quo. I’m so frustrated by health and healthcare in America. I truly believe being healthy can be so much easier if we rethink our physical environment, what it means to receive and pay for healthcare, the supply of food we eat, and the small changes we can make in our life that make a huge impact on a person’s sustainable health and happiness. Our nation’s health has been quickly deteriorating. If we want to improve our health, we have to use good design as a trojan horse to create things that make a healthy lifestyle as easy as possible.

1. An Accident of Hope Summer Pierre is an illustrator and author of The Artist in The Office: How to Creatively Survive and Thrive Seven Days a Week. Her blog is heartwarming, smart and packed with interesting interviews about people’s work lives. Where to start: The John Porcellino interview.

2. Contemporist Launched in 2007 this picture-driven site showcases great new design and contemporary architecture from around the globe. Where to start: Click on architecture for some great projects.

3. Blue Ant Studio If you like mid-century design you’ll love this blog. Where to start: The Art Studio. I love the Chair Exam poster.

4. The Office Stylist For everything you ever wanted to know about a home office. Where to start: A great post on hiding cables – the bane of every home office.

5. Arch Daily You will never need to buy another architecture magazine again. It’s all here. Where to start: Check out building of the year. There’s some incredible work here.

British illustrator Kate Banazi’s career as an illustrator began in a small, London studio but now happily occupies a home in Sydney, Australia, where she has lived and worked for the last three years. Kate shares her home with husband Alistair and 12 year old son Milan (also a talented illustrator.) Kate’s illustrations have appeared in Business Week, Australian journal Meanjin, Financial Review, Telstra, DT Digital, Future Living and in the last issue of Herman Miller’s very own Jugglezine (below).

How did your career in illustration come about? I originally freelanced in menswear design working on a tiny label with a friend, but after Milan was a born I couldn’t have as much fun in the fashion business, and that led me to freelance illustration.

How did you end up in Australia? I met my husband while I was on holiday here, on a blind date no less. We returned to London for four years where we decided to move to Australia, as we thought it would be great for Milan to grow up in the sunshine. Milan loves to go camping, mountain biking and snorkeling and the climate certainly helps for all those things.

Who do you illustrate for? Anyone who’ll pay me! It’s a varied, eclectic client base really and that suits me as its not straightforward illustration that I do. My clients include magazines, editorial, fashion.

What inspires your work? It could be anything. Sometimes nothing for months, then overload! I’m sucker for a piece of shiny orange plastic and a bit of brown corduroy. The brain works in funny ways!

Where is your home office and how much time do you spend there? It’s downstairs underneath the house in a quiet leafy setting. I’ve worked there for a year. It used to be in the house, but the space I have now is much more practical. I’m there for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I do try and keep some structure.

Which items in your office can you not do without? A scalpel and my drying rack. Two infinitely useful things to an illustrator.

Do you share the office with anyone else? No. It’s my space.

How do you stay organized? I don’t! It’s a constant work in progress. I do have method behind my madness and I constantly say that “I will get it done” but real life gets in the way. Even though it’s not tidy I know where everything is. Anyone moves my stuff and they die!

You work as creative director of DDB Group but you also blog from home. How long have you worked from home…and where is ‘home’? I started “things I have seen” about 12 months ago. What originally began as an online scrapbook of my favourite things has gradually turned into something resembling a second job. I work in a creative industry already, but I’m extremely passionate about design and architecture, especially having renovated 3 houses over the years. Home is a two bedroom terrace in Paddington, NSW, which was once an art gallery. It’s my sanctuary. I’m surrounded by some of my favourite design pieces, from furniture to art to sculpture to objet d’art. I feel very creative there.

What is the biggest difference between your office and home workspaces? Home is just for me. In an office environment you are forced to accommodate a variety of tastes. At home, it’s all about me and my partner. I love an uncluttered, minimal space, with heart. At work I spend most of my day in meetings, helping channel creativity on behalf of client’s. At home, it’s all about my own personal creative journey. The view from my study at home is stunning. I look out over the whole property, right down to the garden and swimming pool at the back. And because my study is on the mezzanine level, I feel like I’m up in the trees. It’s extremely relaxing.

Is there any form of technology that really inspires you and helps you in your work? I’m a Mac man through and through. I remember reading a quote, “the best technology is the technology you don’t see.” That’s what Mac is all about for me. You’re never aware of the technology invading your workspace, it just sits quietly behind you and enables you to be creative. The iPad is the thing I’m waiting for. I haven’t been as excited about a piece of technology for a long time. As a blogger, I feel like it really free me up. It will me allow to “create” from wherever I like. I can’t wait.

How do you organize your home office? I’m thinking here of your physical space but also your virtual space. My home office is extremely organised. “Freedom from Chaos” is one of my mantras, at home and at work. At home, everything except my rather large collection of design and architecture books, is hidden away. The same is true of my virtual space. My desktop is empty, apart from 2 icons – the hard drive icon, and a folder marked “blog”, where I keep reference images of things I’ve stumbled across. I use Apple’s “Time Capsule” to ensure that everything is backed up. Another brilliant example of technology you don’t see. It just works away in the background, without any involvement from me. I love it.

What item from your desktop can you not do without? What item do you wish you had? I couldn’t do without my “Magic Mouse” (Mac’s new mouse). It really is the perfect device. It gives my total control over my online experience. I feel like it is perfect. Although I wish I had a Wacom Bamboo Tablet. I’m considering one at the moment. But I’m also waiting to see if the iPad will perform some of the same tasks.

What is your favourite piece of furniture in your office? I sit on an Eames Aluminium Group Chair that I had specially upholstered in white mesh. I saw them in The Sanderson Hotel in London and had to have one. It’s such a beautiful piece. Of course, it’s wonderfully comfortable, but it’s also beautiful as a piece of sculpture.

What inspires you? I’m inspired by simplicity, in architecture, design and art. Van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion is like my version of a chapel. It borders on a religious experience. I’m humbled by its brilliance. But it also inspires me to create beautiful things. I guess that’s why I created “things I have seen”. I wanted to share the things that give me that same feeling of humility.

Photos: Jason Busch

Josh, who lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, says: “I saw your blog post about the use of color in offices and thought I would share mine! When my wife and I bought our house 2 years ago, this room used to have clouds painted on the a wall and the other walls were mint green. I needed an office (I do freelance video and design work) so I decided to go with a bit of a bold color. I already had a number of wood pieces and a white iMac so I decided to continue that color scheme with the addition of a moss green. The Eames circles on the wall added a bit of visual interest and the contrast between the white and green really makes it a fun room to work in. I updated the desk and storage units just two months ago when I got a new computer. I must be honest, when looking for desks I dreamed of having an Airia Desk or Enchord Desk (both fit the color scheme perfectly) but alas, my budget isn’t quite big enough for those purchases…yet.” You can see more images of the office in Josh’s flickr page.