Tour: Graphic Designer Linda Gavin
Berlin-based graphic designer Linda Gavin takes us on a tour of her home work space. And yes, those are Mirra chairs!
How long have you worked from home? And where is home? I have worked from home since I started on my path as a designer in 2003. I moved to Berlin with my husband in 2005 and we started working from home together.
Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? I like my rooms to be like a white canvas. One can quickly spot items and easily change the look of the room. So I guess my style is minimal, but with cables and stuff cluttered over it.
How do you keep your work space organized? It’s a big challenge for me to keep my work station tidy, but it helps to have more storage than items. I think about how I can improve the space all the time. We rethink and rearrange our things when there’s a bunch of new items in the office that can’t be categorized. We put everything back at its place every morning before we start working.
When you set up your home office what did you have to keep in mind? Were there any particular obstacles to overcome? We work a lot, and spend most of our time in the office, so we picked the largest and brightest room in the apartment to work. We wanted to be able to do more than just work on the computers. I’m drawing and sewing at times. My husband plays around with electronics and makes music. We got a big apartment so we would have separate rooms for work and hobbies, but we ended up moving everything into the office. We also needed space for more people to sit and work here, since some of our friends who come to visit are like us, and have to work even when they’re on vacation. We’re currently three working people, a baby and two cats sharing this space. We had to make it comfortable for everyone. There are plenty of sleeping spots for the cats, and the baby has the whole floor as a playground. We can fit up to 10 people around the table.
Is there any piece of home office furniture you covet right now? I’d like to have a Kast shelf, a small couch and a new cat tree.
What desk accessory can’t you do without? My Acrylic Partition Desk Tidy from Muji.
What would you change about your work space? We’re planning to move to another apartment about this time next year. We’ll get an open space plan and integrate the office with the living area. We can’t do that here without tearing down walls. I’d like to have a couch, more storage, a bigger plotter, swap the IKEA furniture for bigger and sturdier stuff.
What inspires you? Architecture, photography, adds, tv-shows, movies, blogs and magazines. I love reading about people and their love affairs with their homes.
Someone please tell me more about the mug in the third picture!