Mary Randolph Carter's Office At Ralph Lauren
Featured on The Selby

In the past, we've all felt a little bit of guilt when it comes to a messy, cluttered home office (check out Richele's rant of shame); but lately, we've come to embrace certain cluttered home offices as delightful creative spaces, stuffed with inspiration that will spark a hundred and one great ideas. Forget organized living: sometimes, the most productive and personal spaces are the ones that are full of unique eye candy and one-of-a-kind treasures. The best example that we found was Mary Randolph Carter's office at Ralph Lauren, beautifully captured by one of our favorite blogs, The Selby. Take a look at some photos of her office after the jump...

Carter (photographed here) spends a lot of time rummaging through flea markets and swap meets to find inspiration to keep the rugged Americana branding of Ralph Lauren looking fresh and interesting season in and season out. Needless to say, her office utilizes some pretty great classic finds (her favorite vintage wooden roll top desk, shabby chic bookcase with peeling blue paint) as a backdrop to all of her personal treasures (old photos and postcards, 60s and 70s album covers, classic hats, etc).

Here's a pretty cool idea for a room divider and inspiration board combo: large salvaged shutters are hinged together and covered with magazine pull outs, vintage posters, and a casual hat-and-coat rack.

A close up of Carter's drawers that are built in to her rolltop desk. The metal label plates are impromptu photo holders, easily accessible and even easier to switch out.

Our workspaces are often an indication of our personal work process. Some of us require a clean desk before we knuckle down; while other of us are (like Carter) need visual cues to stimulate ideas and kickstart our creativity. However, to say that all of us fall solidly under one category or the other seems a bit strict; so here's our question of the day: If you prefer a clean office, where and how do you keep all of your tactile inspirations? And on the flip side: If you can only work in a cluttered office, is there a limit to just how cluttered it can get?

[ To see the entire photo gallery of Carter's office, check out her tour at The Selby. All photos from The Selby. ]

Comments (7)

Love it and as an added bonus, my office is now validated!

I think a messy vs. neat office is a classic case of left brain vs. right brain personality types (or the reverse, but I can't remember).

Anyway, I do know I fall into the messy office camp. Sign of creativity, obviously!

I tend to get my desk, which is really not a very large desk in the corner of my bedroom and I try to keep it in some semblence of order but at the moment it has mail, receipts etc all over it's surface. I feel really good when I go through and clear it off so I can WORK.

I am naturally messy, and I stopped trying to shame myself into pretending I can live zen. As long as it works for me, that I feel comfortable and can find tings without any problem - I embrace my messiness :) I actually like to see things... not to tuck them all away.

Jeeze!!! I find it amazing that anyone could get any work done in that type of work environment. Iwould be too distracted and I am sure my thoughts would wander. I applaud you :)

Mine ebbs and flows. When i'm mid project it looks like that covered in whatever I'm working on. But when I'm done i organize it and file it away (for easy access in the future) Then it gets covered with new images and colors all over again.

@Sunrise:

Check out A Plea for the Horizontally Organized by John Perry.
"Here is my idea. Instead of a desk, I would like to have a very large lazy susan in my office...."
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~jperry/plea.html