J.N. Taylor and Co.: Design*Sponge Moving Sale + Best of The Web By: Grace Bonney

Friday, May 9, 2014

Design*Sponge Moving Sale + Best of The Web By: Grace Bonney

One of the greatest things about working online is the way it allows you to communicate with people halfway across the world. But over the past few years, our team has started to miss collaborating with (and talking to) friends and artists in person. We all watched with excitement when our friends opened Makeshift Society in San Francisco and a part of me was tempted to pack us up and move west to join a collaborative space that would allow us to interact with the people we write about and admire. Web designers, writers, photographers, illustrators all working in one place sounded like a dream, but we were on the wrong coast. Until last week.

Last Friday, Makeshift Society Brooklyn officially opened their doors just a few subway stops away from our houses. We were thrilled to be a part of their Kickstarter effort (that’s Amy and me on the left!) and I was delighted to be involved with their advisory board when Rena and Bryan were planning where the space would be and how they would go about adapting this space to suit Brooklyn’s needs. As the opening date drew closer, I floated the idea of working in a larger collaborative space to the rest of our team. We talked and everyone agreed that having a space that allowed us to be around and work with other people would not only be an exciting change of pace, but a great way for us to expand our sources of inspiration and open doors for collaborations we might not have otherwise imagined. So last week we decided to take the leap and join.

Almost immediately I feel like I have a whole new lease on our working lives. I hadn’t realized how much I was holding on to our office as something we “should” have, rather than something we wanted to have. I was able to find an incredible film company that shared our love of design to take over our space and I feel good knowing it will be in great hands. So, to get the space ready for them to move in, we’re hoping to find new homes for the office furniture and decor we no longer need. Unlike our last yard sale which was mainly about re-homing photoshoot props, this sale will include larger furniture (sofas, chairs), lighting, rugs and storage that we no longer need. We’ll be selling our Revive PDX sofa, our large pink Blu Dot desk, storage containers, filing cabinets, Chippendale-style chairs, artwork and books that we don’t have room for in our own homes. Makeshift will have all of this for us, so if you’re in need of pretty things to brighten up your space, this is the time to visit. The details are in the announcement above and below. We hope to see you there – and around Makeshift if you’re in the area! Thank you to all of our neighbors in the Pencil Factory for being such great friends over the past two years. xo, grace