Cool motivational artwork for new office?


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I'm just setting up my first office space. Any suggestions for where to buy some cool posters for the office?

Motivation Office Space

asked Mar 3 '14 at 21:55
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Douglas Patterson
200 points

3 Answers


2

TL;DR: The traditional motivational poster is kind of hit or miss in value. IMHO, you're better off using the wall space for functional things that help you get stuff done or for showcasing your business's achievements and dreams.

I like the other answers that are on here, but I wanted to add a few other thoughts as well.

First, I want to say something about traditional motivational posters. You seem to be at least hinting at those in your question. I think for most people, they aren't going to make much of a difference. Motivation is far more complex than a pretty picture, and if you're trying to motivate yourself or your team where motivation is lacking, hanging up posters like this isn't going to fix it. You need to get to the heart of the issue and fix that.

To make things worse, for many people, motivational posters are insulting. You hear phrases like, "Management thinks hanging up some pretty pictures with cutesy quotes is going to change anything? Those guys just don't get it." It's because of this that the whole world of demotivational posters arose, as Nishank mentioned.

I might suggest two broad categories of things that are better to put on your wall than motivational posters.

First, give the best wall space to things that help you get stuff done:

  • Whiteboards and lots of them. Whiteboards are great for brainstorming, and provide meeting points for your teams.
  • Project management tools. If you're using Scrum, don't hesitate to use up prime wall real estate for the Scrum board, the burndown chart, or the product backlog. If you're using a different methodology, there are probably equivalent things that can go on the wall.
  • References for quick information. Google is fast, but many times, being able to glance at the wall and see a reference poster that refreshes your mind is faster. I'm thinking about buying a regular expression poster myself, because glancing up at a poster with examples and stuff would be faster than hunting it down in a book or on the web. This can be job-related or even stuff specific to the projects you're working on. I have several diagrams and tables related to our underlying architecture that I use regularly.

Basically, with this point I'm saying to turn the place with everything you need to get the work done. Things that help you get stuff done should get the best spots on the wall.

The second category that I would suggest is things that are about your company's past, present, and future, even if they don't serve a direct purpose. For instance:

  • Your first payment check in a frame.
  • If you have a physical product, a showcase of how your product has evolved over time, containing one from each iteration (plus maybe an empty spot at the end to symbolize that you're still moving forward).
  • A quote wall with praise from your customers.

For me, having things like this that are specific to my business are far more motivating than a poster or some artwork would be. (That's not to say there isn't room for some good quality art or even traditional motivational posters, but that those should have a lower priority than the above.)

answered Mar 21 '14 at 19:50
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rbwhitaker
3,465 points
  • +1 for whiteboards and any info references - Etsy has a wall with monitors that are basically dashboards with various information about the site (traffic, engagement, etc) and its health - useful and accessible to all in the office – Webbie 10 years ago

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Society6 - A great selection of posters but could take time finding ones you want.

Blik - These aren't posters but could drastically spice up your walls.

I used their surface skins to transform my desk today.

answered Mar 4 '14 at 03:34
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Lindsey Wilson
565 points

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We have demotivational posters around our little office that always get a good laugh. Got them from Despair.com.

You can find some traditional ones at StartupVitamins and Busy Building Things.

I think the workplace should really reflect the culture you're trying to create.

Some funny ones:

answered Mar 3 '14 at 22:12
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Nishank Khanna
4,265 points
  • Hey Nishank - Can you tell me how to add images to posts? – Lindsey Wilson 11 years ago
  • It'll show up as an option in the text editor shortly (in a few hours). Had to turn it off when someone started posting NSFW pictures in all the questions -- changing the logic so only users with at least 50 karma can see the option. – Nishank Khanna 11 years ago

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