15 Inspiring Home Offices
Is there such a thing as the perfect home office? From my personal opinion, I’d say that your own office is the perfect one. Then again, this all depends on what we have, what we use and if we’re pleased with it. I’m not even close to satisfied with my office yet, but I’m working on it.
For all of you who has your office setup already, but could still use some inspiration or suggestions on how to improve it, or if you haven’t setup your office just yet (like me), this small round-up will definitely get you inspired.
Leopard Fever

Now this is a sweet setup, very nice positioning and placements of the screens with a very nice addition – TV connected to the computer for movies. Clean, discreate, awesome and just wonderful – don’t you just love it?
Apple Cinema Display Setup – Upright

I like this setup due to the vertical placements of the screens. It makes it looks so much cleaner and it saves a lot of space on your desk. Notice the very nice addition of a tablet? Fits perfectly with the overall office.
Scenic Office

This looks like a real office, three big screens, a corded phone in front of them and a filing cabinet beside the desk. I love the really serious look this setup gives me, and that’s not all – the digital photoframe is a great addition.
Camo Workstation

Looks playful at the same time that it looks really serious. Love the military pattern with the great addition of the “caution” tape. The three photo frames is just a bonus in this office, makes it look complete in a very professional way.
Emotion Studio

Now this is dedication, are all music producers offices like this? If it is, I’m considering a career change. This is just awesomeness on a very high level, so clean at the same time as it’s overflowing with displays.
Spring in Cincinnati

Okay, the computer might be a little old these days – But hey, does that really matter with a view like that? Even though he could have left out the plate with breadcrumbs on it, this setup is just sweet!
New Silly Mac Setup

This is beautiful, professional, clean, great lighting and great use of space. In my own opinion, this is one of the most professional setups I’ve ever seen. The iPhone and Webcam are just nice additions to an already close to perfect office setup.
iMac 24 2.4

For me it’s the speakers, iPhone and lighting that does it for me. Looks really professional and clean, the symetry are just great. Like this one a lot – what do you think?
Multi-Screen Tech

Dedication yet again, a lot of screens with a really nice addition of a 13″ custom built self-enclosed Wall-PC on the left wall. Could you point out all the additions that makes this office look this great? Here’s what I think – iPhone, wall-PC, cool wall clock, webcam, iPhone box, digital photo frame, external HDD drive and so much more.
Fish Bowl Setup

A very clean and professional looking office space, the thing that makes this one so unique is the small bowl of water beside the screen. Makes it look so homey of some sort, I just love this very simple yet professional home office.
Green Light Setup

The green dioder light makes this office look really playful, clean and still it manages to keep it on a professional level. Additions like the, iPhone and a cordless phone makes this look great. Do you agree with me?
More Screens!

I don’t know what to say about this one, it’s just awesome dedication! Love every part of this setup, looks so professional and clean all over – don’t you agree?
Office at Night

Simplicity are always great, with the current lighting he uses – the office looks really clean, An extra nice addition is the, Bose speaker system he uses. This brings great sound to an already great office.
Minimal Setup

Looks like this office has a great view, nice lighting and the desk is just amazingly beautiful. Another one who uses, Bose as sound system for the office – and yet again, it brings great sound to an amazing office.
Temporarily Together

This is not one of thoose round-ups who saves the best for last, but it’s not far from it. This setup is just great all the way through, with additions like the homemade “http” painting?, a wooden desk and the iPod connected to a sound system, it just looks great to be honest.
Show Me Yours!
I will end this round-up with something we usually don’t do: I would love too see how your office looks like. You can either post a link to it in the comments below or you can mail me the image(s) at officefreelanceswitch@gmail.com and I might feature it in an upcoming round-up in a couple of weeks. Note that I won’t be able to feature all of the (what I presume to be) great offices you our fantastic readers have, but I will pick the 20 best ones.
So what are you waiting for? Grab your camera and start shooting your office from the best angles possible. I can’t wait to see what Your office looks like! Needs some tips on what you could add to your office? Check out this post from Collis for ways to improve your home office on any budget.



Half of this people is gonna die from excessive radiation.
I would gladly switch places with those people
the office setups are amazing, each one is unique!
too many screens to get distracted i suppose..
How about a followup? “Uninspiring Home Offices (For Broke People)”. I can submit my student-esque apartment with a desk cluttered with Dollarama storage, a 4-year-old laptop, and cardboard boxes instead of drawers!
(Okay, so maybe being a newbie freelancer has just left me totally jealous of these gorgeous setups. Just a little.)
I like:
1) Office at night
2) Minimal Setup
3) Temporarily Together
4) Fish Bowl Setup
I love the Temporarily Together workspace, love the natural wood!
I’d love to see my office in the next round-up, I have two shots you could choose from if you decide it’s in the top 20:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/callumchapman/4542877875/ or http://www.flickr.com/photos/callumchapman/4543508942/
Callum Chap!!
I envy you.. xD always I’ve had the project to use glass a big glass. so ellegant as yours!
What is with the reference to having and iPhone/iPod in most of these pictures and what a great addition it makes? What makes the office just that much better by having these devices? Can’t they just listen to music or whatever right through their computers? They have Bose sound and whatever else.
I’m not anti-apple, but come on.
I know right? this dude is obsessed with “professional” and “clean” and iphones? most of them look messy with more than 2 monitors…
and those lighting setups are just plain horrible for designing in. they’ve obviously not heard of monitor calibration.
Love these! Can’t wait to see more!
This is a great inspiration! I think I need to reaarange my setup for aesthetics and efficiency. Great roundup, thanks!
You can always decipher between the mac and pc users. I’m with Kim though, and can’t wait for the day when I can submit my Zen workspace. Thanks for the inspiration.
Why do I see all Macs here? Does every freelancer/work-from-home person use a mac?
If that is the case, then I didn’t know that and I might (well maybe) consider a mac too!
And these setups look really cool. I have nothing compared to those setups, so I am too embarrassed to take a picture (it’s just a table with a Dell Inspiron 1564).
My favorite is the Green Light Setup, then (in order):
Minimal Setup
Office at Night
Leopard Fever
New Silly Mac Setup
I couldn’t see any PC’s there, all macs. I am surprised by this. Maybe I am a little too out-dated?
There´s actually a couple of PC´s included in this round-up, maybe they´re not as easy to spot as the Mac´s though.
Here´s one – http://www.flickr.com/photos/justingriz/3332534822/in/pool-350714@N25
Here´s quite a few actually (more server´s than PC´s maybe) – http://www.flickr.com/photos/didak/2974540091/in/pool-33795555@N00
@Everyone – Don´t feel that your office aren´t great or unique enough, send me your picture anyways. Who knows, I might like it – besides, a more homey home office is always a great inspirational source.
Steve Jobs would have you believe that you need a mac to be a designer. as we can see a lot of people believe it.
I don’t like dark workspaces because it hurt eyes.
These are very inspiring. I like Leopard Fever and Spring Cincinnati.
Great collection! My own small desktop…
Kudos to the ones who brave it out and get by without 20 monitors. The one-monitor office setup is becoming a rare sight these days. Would also like to see more offices with all custom built systems and less Apple, Apple, Apple…
The one with the six screens looks like overkill, but these are some nice work spaces.
@Callum Chapman Yours is nice also
Thanks man!
Damn, there’s some awesome workspaces. I’ll have to incorporate some ideas into my own space.
iMac 24 2.4 – What’s the name of those speakers? They look awesome!
Great Desks!
@chapolito – I’m not a fan of Steven Jobs… But I love working on my mac.
They´re called – Ferguson Hill 007
I’m just wondering if there’s really a need to have so many monitors?
True to what the title of the article says…….Thanks for the post.
As amazing as these spaces are, they seem to be devoid of creativity and sources of inspiration. My favourite is Temporarily Together…and I love the fishbowl….my space is filled with visual inspirations – pens of all colours, pantone reference books, design magazines, inspiring prints.
Here is what I work with:
http://www.jordanwalker.net/about/workstation
you have a nice setup and portfolio – i cant use a track ball mouse to save my life though haha!
I bet I say “wow my offices are lame” on a daily basis, but I will let you be the judge. The link below shows a picture of my day job office and my freelance office… see if you can guess which is which!
http://www.michaelsaathoff.com/blog/the-offices.html
Beautiful and inspiring setups and yet completely unrealistic – where do you get such clean and uncluttered work spaces? That’s the biggest challenge…
Some of these are not “home” offices.
I feel awfull…
o just got my cordlñess phoen a old Dell pc
a 15″ lcd screen an awfull mouse and my need-to-be-trash desk
LOL
In practice there are 14 setup since Office at night and Minimal setup are the same setup.
WOW that’s such great collection to remember me that i have to change my fujitsu book
Some of these are really inspiring. I love the simplistic approach of the “minimal setup” example and the “contemporary meets rustic” setup of the example directly beneath. Really like the idea of repurposing old wood for something so functional.
Thanks for the post!
Sorry to do it, but I have to go against the crowd here and disagree about some of these being inspiring. These photos show some nice equipment, for sure, but as inspiring home office spaces, I’m not impressed by most of them. The first one looks like someone’s living room, and I’m not impressed by any home office that’s not in a dedicated office. Same goes for most of the tiny desk setups. Sorry… not impressed or inspired. Show me some nice mid-size or large size desks with plenty of work space and I’m more inclined to take notice.
As mentioned earlier, some of these aren’t even in home offices. At least one, maybe two, of these setups are clearly in a corporate office setting, one even looks like it’s in a cubicle. Not at all inspiring for a freelancer. “Scenic Office”, seriously? A 1980′s desk, metal filing cabinet, in a regular office. Aside from having a few more screens than most people, what is inspiring about that one?
Just seems more like a “who has the most screens” list than an inspiring workspace list.
Wow, you’re sounding like a real hater right now.
So by pointing out flaws in an article and expressing my opinion about these home offices that are supposed to be inspiring, I’m a “hater?” Since when is FW an “agree with us or keep quiet” sort of community?
I agree with you. This looks like a professional battle station thread filled with over-ricing. Nothing that says I have converted this space for producing work using these shiny things.
I would have loved to see one coffee pic or uneaten bagel. Also I hate macs (o their users).
Leopard Fever is awesome. I really like it.
New Silly Mac Setup is cool. Nice collections.
Ugh. Mactastic. Would be interesting to see what these people actually do in their home offices. Work on one screen, World Cup on another and Civilization 5 on the laptop.
Yeah I think this would be a lot more meaningful to me if I were into Macs. Since I’m one of those graphic designers who aren’t I’m forced to look at these for the actual merits of the workspace, which in most of them isn’t very inspiring.
I have faith you can do better, Freelance Switch.
Thanks for sharing!
Makes me want to tidy my desk and buy at least 2 Macs
Can’t understand why some people need 3-4 displays. I have 1 laptop for all my work. That’s it. And thank god it does the job very nicely. Well, can’t brag with an office now, since we’re visiting some friends (for 6 months in NYC) and I am currently working from their living room dining table. Yep, totally uncool. And, when I am not sight-seeing, I can still earn my bucks
Nice, enjoy the Big Apple!
Having multiple monitors really helps with development. One monitor dedicated to Netbeans or Eclipse IDE, on another IE Tester, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Safari for cross browser compatibility. Say running a virtual development server environment on another, and the fourth is really what ever else you like, for example, communication: skype, Google Talk, other IM’s.
Multitasking is key here, with 8-32GB of RAM in a 64-bit OS in a tower you can really do a lot more than a laptop.
Multi-screens! Great way to accomplish efficiency. Nice collection of photos of office space!
i just have a cell phone on my desk that i code, do social media, and do photoshop work with.
beat that you minimalists. ^ . ^
How come everybody has multiple monitors? (suddenly I feel the urge to get 2 more too!)
BTW do you all use multiple computers powered by the same computer, or just multiple monitors? I find it really irritating to manage my data across more than one computer. (Network drives seem to have some lag which I dun like)
Yes, the multiple monitors are controlled by two graphics cards. The reason to have so many is to virtualize other operating systems that mimic a live host environment.
For example, the base OS is Ubuntu that runs a virtual environment – Windows Server 2003, Coldfusion 9, MS SQL 2005 – a development environment that is exactly like the VPS.
Just wondering why some people have so many monitors, their home offices look like some military bases rather than conducive, non-distracting work environments. A lot more can be achieved with just a single computer and a monitor. At the most you may need another laptop if you need to work on different environments. But 4 or 5 screens. No way! I hope I’m never THAT busy in my life.
I understood multiple monitors when the typical pro screens were 17″. Now I just don’t see the need for much more than what I have with the 24″ iMac. And now they have the 27″ screen available. That’s more than enough.
Given the choice, I’ll take 1 widescreen over multiple standard screens any day.
That’s a lot of Macs… but they’re all cool nonetheless.
Even if my home office is limited and black (monitor’s black, phone’s black, calculator’s black), I’m happy and content with it.
Too many Macs. I’m going to die of Steve-megalomania poisoning.
most of those setups are just overkill, do their users seriously use them, lol…seriously….I mean if they do that’s great but somehow I just think they just want to show off, personally I like having one computer, one screen, you can get a lot more done without being “too much” on and yea I use a PC. hehehe =)
Some cool workspaces there, getting inspiration for when I get around to getting a second monitor. Like the fishbowl idea!
Ps. Did the creator of the collection not notice that “office at night” and “minimal setup” are the exact same office, just one photo is at night, the angle is different and there is a different wallpaper. “Another one who uses, Bose as sound system for the office” lol
Still, nice collection all the same!
Everything look good here! Nice work space.
But I still love mine …
check this http://www.flickr.com/photos/oxidizzy/4665754310/
Wow! I wish I could turn my office into something like that. Hmm… I’m inspired to do some rearranging. Will show once I’m done with it.
These all are mess of screens and buttons. We’ve found a way to avoid them in our work place. Check out the most greeny and creative way to produce design work:
http://every1knows.com/2009/05/26/interview-for-newwebpick-issue-22/
))
Nice list !
Here is mine : http://www.workstationsetups.com/pc/pc-home-office-setup/
I am positively green with envy right now -those are awesome! I’d share a picture of my office, but since I’m home from college, my “office” is a chair in the living room. If I had a sweet http: poster like the one in the last shot, maybe my armchair would feel more inspiring.
awesome set ups..
Here is a link to what my office looks like. Somewhat!
<a href="http://pt87.wordpress.com/"
Some nice office setups. I’d like to see how they wrangle cables, particularly those that aren’t facing walls.
Rather tedious comments from the anti-Mac crowd. Why do they always feel the need to spread their bitterness?
WOW WOW WOW WOW !!!! You inspired me for clean up my PC table!!! I like the post!!! Awesome!!
Hm,
They all look pretty nice but what irritates me is that they all are more or less the same – they’ve all got some Apple product somewhere in there (Iphone, Mac Keyboard, Imac you get the picture). There are so many beautiful office set ups that can go without any of apples products.
Not that I have anything against Apple
it’s just that EVERYONE uses those products and its getting kind of boring if you ask me
just my 2 cents.
Max
I adore clean, minimal workspaces.. And they are not impractical providing you sort the desk at the end of each day, it only takes 15mins. And can make you so much more productive.
My favourites here are:
- Green Light Setup
- Temporarily Together
- Camo Workstation
My workspace doesn’t have a mac, not yet anyway. But it does have a large work area and it’s free of clutter.
The only thing that bothers me about these set ups….no Windows computers…
You should show the chairs as well. I’m planning to buy a chair and i find it really hard to choose one that i don’t mind spending several hours straight
awesome workspace hope i get one someday
LOL! The captions are awesome! And the photos just really show what being a freelancer is all about: a clutter-free desk with iPhone boxes and Bose speakers!
all those awesome workplaces just inspired me to work harder so I can get a mac.
Where are all the PCs? Can’t you have a cool office with a PC?
You are right, and it’s really strange that you can be only inspiring (professional, cool) with Apple equipment, ridiculously.
All so shiny and super clean. I don’t think they are believable workplaces.
Where are the coffee mug stains and the newspapers & magazines on the desks? And I am stopping at the half eaten sandwich or snack.
I would vote for some reality.
It seems, that i have to improve my office
It’d be really cool if I had the chance to visit in on these offices and point out things I would do to turn them from good to great. Most of these face a wall. I feel uncomfortable doing this. Much better is to always have it face the room entry way (a la feng shui). A few of these also expose ugly wiring (mainly because of all the electronics). I’d also ‘bring nature in’ by adding aquarium(bigger than a fish bowl) stocked with plants or just plants. Some of these are a bit dark and dreary for my taste. Clutter is my enemy…but then again that’s my work style.
Less is better (except in the case of monitors
To the person who decided not to publish my last comment :
Seriously, this is for you guys. I’ve been a regular reader of FreelanceSwitch for a good while, when you guys were starting. It’s great. I still love it and most of the time find it very interesting.
But this kind of blogging is bad for you. Repeating the same 12 words over and over while promoting luxury brands (every time Patrik sees an iPhone or Bose speakers, he seems to go nuts) isn’t useful for your readers. He basically took these pictures from other blogs and wrote a the same caption over and over again. I even spotted a couple of typos here and there.
Oh, and there’s just one more thing : censorship is uncool. You shouldn’t.
Beautiful, but it looked like a series of Mac ads, or Apple worship at like the ultra creepy level. I have BOTH a Mac (which doesn’t work much of the time and that Apple admits is a lemon but won’t replace) and an aging PC since half to 3/4′s of my clients own PCs and I need to work on and send them PC documents or files they can open/use. Many of the freelancers I know also have dual OS systems for the same reason. So, did you not have any office shots with a PC in them?
Like someone else mentioned – I have a 4 year old system and a small, but efficient office – and one that doesn’t look like an ad for obsessive compulsive disorder. Why not show REAL offices? You know, ones with papers and files and books and the real work flow? I have NEVER seen anyone WORK in spaces that look like this. Maybe the objective was to promote the latest and greatest in Apple products to sell ads for this post – but I think most of us would like to see REAL offices where real people do real work. This is more like looking at a sales catalog for computer monitors.
very good blog who have those offices
I think… its hard so hard to have a clean space to work when you really work. It depends ‘baout activities you do. I work with prices lists, invoices, clients notes, emails, phone calls and files to develop for press and printing.
I don’t want to spam… but I’ve changed a lot of times:
once time ago for my personal use: http://saladamixta.com/images/print_SCR124.jpg and when I had a clean space to work (home office) http://www.saladamixta.com/images/print_SCR128.jpg and , when I had a mac: http://saladamixta.com/images/print_SCR127.jpg and this is the last and current personal space to stay … http://saladamixta.com/images/SDC10669_d474g7oa5.jpg + http://saladamixta.com/images/SDC10644__35d775543632157.jpg
Stupid Apple keyboard, thin, no edges, cable… Oh my…
this is my office setup…