Stephanie Buck, Mashable

Social media is all about user/customer interaction — that much we know. But many businesses value staff engagement as well. Pinterest’s collaborative approach encourages employees to not only get to know each other, but also to communicate their personalities and tastes to the wider public.

Marketing and communications agency Red Door Interactive recently launched a Pinterest project that encourages staff members to contribute ideas and inspiration for its new office. The board, titled “San Diego Office Inspiration,” encourages 63 staff member contributors to pin interior design, architectural and decor ideas for the new office, which they’ll be relocating to Oct. 2012.

“We value the opinions and aesthetic preferences of all our employees and have really enjoyed their discoveries as well as seeing the engagement on our collective suggestions,” she says.

And the sky’s the limit when it comes to inspiration. Red Door’s new office space will be significantly bigger than its old digs, and the staff was not given a budget cap. “This was unrelated to budget — it was more about collaboration, contribution and of course, inspiration,” says Noricks. “We encouraged a ‘dream big’ approach to creating the ideal office.”

Turns out, the staff is dreaming about gymnastics-inspired meeting spaces, giant hammocks and vertical gardens for its new office. Noricks adds her two cents: “I’m personally voting for the treadmill desks and a photobooth!”

Read the full article, here.

See the Red Door San Diego Office Inspiration Pinterest Board, here.

Welcome to Red Door Interactive’s first featured artist post. Each quarter we will highlight the work of a different featured artist in our “Gallery” themed conference room. 

We hope you enjoy the paintings created by this quarter’s highlighted artist, Joanna Milo, and welcome you to stop by our Downtown San Diego office to see and be inspired by them.  

Drawing Inspiration from Featured Artwork:
Here at Red Door Interactive we often look to our unique office settings for creative inspiration.  Each office has conference rooms that are themed to make one feel at home and inspired. Our headquarters is in Downtown San Diego’s East Village, and each of the conference rooms here are named after rooms you’d find in a home – The Living Room, The Den, The Studio, The Kitchen, The Sunroom, The Balcony and The Gallery. The Gallery is complete with bright white walls, modern mid-century lighting and white furniture. We wanted a room where we could feature and celebrate local artists work to share with not only our employees but also with our clients. In our Gallery conference room we will now be able to enjoy the featured art work and the inspiration that each piece provides. 

Featured Artist: Joanna Milo
Our newest paintings are the work of Joanna Milo. She is a friend of Red Door’s and used to work in the advertising industry but nowadays you can find her painting in her Studio in Little Italy.Joanna Milo, born in Warsaw, Poland and raised in Europe until the age of 10, derived an early appreciation for abstract art with the help of her parents’ guidance. Joanna creates paintings that speak not only to the viewer’s appreciation and interpretation of nature, but also to ones emotion.

Artist Statement:
“From my very first forays into the creation of art, I have always been inspired by nature, specifically, the way the colors of the sea and sky change based on the time of day, the seasons, the weather, and the place. There’s a reason few of us can peel our eyes away from a sunset or from the magnificent clouds formed on the horizon after a thunderstorm. The beauty of sky and sea is captivating and fascinating.
 
Rather than attempting to replicate the color variations I see in nature, I strive to be inspired by it and allow my paintings to emerge organically. Using impasto technique allows me to blend and intermingle color rather than mixing and diluting it. I welcome and encourage my viewers to use their imagination to forge their own interpretation of my work. Where, I may have been inspired by the desert at dawn, the viewer may see a brilliant sunset over the sea. This is what has drawn me to explore abstract expressionism in my work. Each painting will reveal itself differently to each viewer, and the one constant I hope to share is the feeling of happiness and serenity found in nature.”

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” -Pablo Picasso

Every so often, the Red Door creative team makes an outing to a local museum for inspiration. Interactive Designer Michelle’s sister Lindsay works at the New Children’s Museum, just a short stroll along the embarcadero from the RDI offices.

Museum is really a misnomer for the place, it’s more like New Children’s
Fun-o-rama and the creative team had no problem tapping into the inner child
in each one of us. A room filled with mattresses, the perfect place for a creative powwow.

The space is a three-story industrial/green affair designed by local architect Ron Quigley. There are solar panels on the roof, plenty of windows for natural light and much of the building is formed from recycled materials.

Oh look, client Cricket is a sponsor.

Using recycled materials creative team members build houses as part of tent city. (Which are all indistinguishable from pieces done by the kids.)

We return refreshed and inspired.

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” -Pablo Picasso

Every so often, the Red Door creative team makes an outing to a local museum for inspiration. Interactive Designer Michelle’s sister Lindsay works at the New Children’s Museum, just a short stroll along the embarcadero from the RDI offices.

Museum is really a misnomer for the place, it’s more like New Children’s
Fun-o-rama and the creative team had no problem tapping into the inner child
in each one of us. A room filled with mattresses, the perfect place for a creative powwow.

The space is a three-story industrial/green affair designed by local architect Ron Quigley. There are solar panels on the roof, plenty of windows for natural light and much of the building is formed from recycled materials.

Oh look, client Cricket is a sponsor.

Using recycled materials creative team members build houses as part of tent city. (Which are all indistinguishable from pieces done by the kids.)

We return refreshed and inspired.