Our new offices in Shoreditch are a little bare with their white walls. I’m missing the blue and green colours from the old Soho office, and figured I could do something to add a splash of colour and personality. I created and printed a set of 4 posters in A2 format, and tacked them to the walls.
Everyone’s seen the old Keep Calm and Carry On wartime motivational posters, and I had to include it in the mix. I had it printed in BraveNewTalent blue, which added to the calming effect of thinking this phrase through. Works like a charm!
However, keeping calm is great and all, but it’s not going to get things done. I came across the Get Excited and Make Things version of the poster, complete with a crown made of wrenches, nuts and bolts on Flickr, and loved it right away. It was this that kicked off the initial idea of creating a set, and I’ve had it printed in BraveNewTalent green.
I’ve got to give credit, I think, to Facebook (although admit there’s probably more history to the saying than what I’m stating here) for the statement Move Fast and Break Things. If we want to keep up in this world, we can’t be afraid to ship code and see what comes of it. We can always fix it later.
NB: on closer inspection of the poster at work, I see one of our developers affixed a post-it not adding EXCEPT FOR UNIT TESTS. Yes, okay, don’t break unit tests, guys 😉
The last one is a testament to the idea that it’s okay to screw up, as long as you’re willing to learn from it.
These posters line the walls of the development team room right now, and they’re most often referred to in jest. I’m not one to believe in a single set of ‘words to live by’, but looking up and choosing one of these to guide my thoughts throughout the day has been useful.
I’m happy to share (since, of course, none of this is really my original work anyway). It’s a large file, but feel free to download the PSD I printed these posters from. If you make use of these, send me some pictures or gear (anyone feel like printing me a t-shirt?). Enjoy!
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