This clever new app scans your hardrive and presents you with a colorful “daisy” that clearly shows the size of all your files – including those pesky large ones that are slowing your computer down by taking up far too much space. Via Swissmiss.
This month’s CreativeMornings breakfast lecture lands at Herman Miller’s Los Angeles showroom with Poketo founders, husband-and-wife team, Ted Vadakan and Angie Myung. Poketo began in 2003 with a line of limited-edition vinyl wallets and has expanded into a product range that includes office accessories and fashion items. Last week they visited the Herman Miller showroom (below) to get ready for their talk – see their shots of the showroom here. I asked the duo to share their studio space and answer a few questions about their work life.
How long have you worked in your current studio? And where is it? We’ve been in our studio for over 4 years now. It’s in the Arts District of Downtown Los Angeles. A really growing part of downtown… cool restaurants, bars, cafes and still a very pedestrian part of downtown LA. It’s not far from the hustle and bustle and still maintains a cool neighborhood feel and a strong sense of community among the residents here.
Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? It’s hard to define our style. Both Angie and I design and curate all of the artists and the products on Poketo. We’ve collaborated with other 200 international artists for Poketo. We both have eclectic and different tastes, but, when we both like something, we know it right away. We like to think of our aesthetic as happy, modern, colorful, bright, full of personality, and accessible.
How do you keep your work space organized? Our space is a small 1200 square foot open floor plan. We have no dividers to separate work spaces. The way we work is pretty democratic, everyone chimes in at any given time on different topics in the office. Organization is maintained within each of our desks and small shelves above them. Because we house most of our products here at the studio, light industrial shelves are important for storing all of the thousands of goods we carry.
When you set up your office what did you have to keep in mind? Were there any particular obstacles to overcome? We set up the office as open, flexible, and modular as possible. Because we do everything here from design, outreach, packing/shipping, meetings and events, we wanted a space that flowed freely and furniture that could be moved around easily. For example, on any given day, it could be a normal day of designing at our desks, doing a photoshoot and the next day could be an artshow with tons of work on the walls and hundreds of people in our space. We needed a studio that could function as both office and event space, one that could change at whim with a fair amount of ease.
What do you like about the office space? I do like the shelf above my desk as it holds art, personal gifts from artists, and other knick knacks from our travels. The office turntable is also highly coveted, everyone here brings their records in for a spin.
What desk accessory can’t you do without? I can’t live without my Poketo Desk-It and Bookmark Tabs. The Desk-It keeps my week straight and the tabs I use to mark inspirations in magazines and books.
What would you change about your work space? As we are growing, more and more people are in the office. As much as I love an open floor plan, having a separate area for meetings and brainstorm sessions would be amazing. I would love a giant room with huge dry-erase walls, a long table, and comfy chairs- a room solely for ideas and play.
What inspires you? We recently renovated the kitchen in our home. Cooking has now become a huge inspiration… and then, eating.
Here is Tina Roth Eisenberg‘s Dumbo studio. Recognize those chairs?
Had a very nice lunch today with Tina Roth Eisenberg of Swissmiss, Brain Pickings‘ Maria Popova and Sharon Lee, president of Culture-Brain. Three smart women doing very interesting work. We ate at the studio run by Tina. It’s a shared workspace on the water in Dumbo. (You can read more about it here). Conversation ranged from Malcolm Gladwell’s ego and the role a second child plays in a family to the delicious local Himalayan hot sauce and Milton Glaser on the power of really knowing what you’re capable of doing.
Back at the hotel I’m now set up to work. Kind of. While I love the view from my hotel window the cord situation is driving me crazy (see below). I came across the Applecore cable tamers (above) on Tina’s blog. Perfect for the cable-heavy world I seem to exist in.
For now ICFF beckons. More on that tomorrow.
