Wayne Pick, executive creative director, Rapp, New Zealand, discusses inspiration and creativity.
What’s your favorite thing to turn to in your office when you need inspiration?
The window – what’s going on outside. Traffic on Queen St, coffee group mums pushing their babies in strollers through the park, business people on mobiles, students, homeless people, guys driving big trucks, an eccentric jogger in camo shorts running backwards – the answer always seems to be out there, not in here.
How does your space reflect your ideal work environment?
The ideal work environment wouldn’t be confined to any office. The ideal place to work is in situ – wherever our customers are. Whether that’s in a school, university cafe, bank branch, in the suburbs, or a retirement village, it doesn’t matter. There is nothing more stifling than creative industry introspection – and not actually getting out there.
With a laptop and mobile internet access, we can actually work anywhere. And we usually do.
But our work space isn’t half bad. Big windows overlooking the palm trees in Myers Park. Glass walls opening up to the great team outside. And while OSH (Occupational Safety and Health) don’t let us walk around in bare feet or keep a dog as we’d really like, it’s one of the best places to work we can imagine. And jandals – our summer uniform – are almost like bare feet anyway.
What would someone who knows you well but has never been to your office find most surprising upon seeing your workspace for the first time?
It changes from week to week, but there’s always some odd experiment going on that would probably raise an eyebrow. Right now, we’re collecting used tea bags and drying them; recently the office was full of blow up dolls. Upstairs, they were breeding tadpoles for a while. Our cleaners have learned not to throw anything away. But generally, it’s just a hardworking space – stacked with reference, some of it from the world of advertising, most of it from other spheres.
