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Ad man John Q. Harrington
thinks unorthodox and fun workspaces lead to unorthodox
and fun work, so he avoided cubicle culture in building
his company’s office.
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Alumnus
Builds
Unorthodox Ad Agency
By Dawn Klingensmith
Advertising heavyweight John Q. Harrington
— just “Q” to his friends — wondered how
creative types could “think outside the box” even
as they were required to work inside one. It seemed to him that
boxy, compartmentalized workspaces generated uninspired ad campaigns.
“The more constrained your environment
is, the more constrained your thinking is,” says Harrington,
BJ ’77, a writer and creative director whose clients have
included DuPont, Kodak, Microsoft, Sprint, Pillsbury, Nestle and
the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Before quitting Kansas City, Mo., agency NKH&W
Inc. to start his own company, Blackbox
Advertising, Harrington looked at nearly 200 buildings in
the city’s downtown. Then, in January 2000, he bought a
run-down candy factory in the artsy Crossroads District and sunk
his savings into renovation.
The finished space reflects the ad man’s
conviction that work and fun aren’t mutually exclusive.
He’s particularly proud of the convertible conference table,
which has a stainless steel surface that rises to the ceiling
with the push of a button to reveal a billiard table.
Right angles are rarities at Blackbox Advertising,
a “talent broker” that matches the region’s
top freelancers to agencies looking to outsource. The interior
walls are curved and made of greenhouse panels, so sunlight filters
through the building.
“It gives the space a fluid feel, a
sense that spaces flow naturally from one to another,” Harrington
says. “The walls defining individual offices are low to
encourage collaboration. If you’re completely shut off,
your ideas become stagnant.”
Sluggish thinking has seldom been a problem
for Harrington, who’s won just about every major advertising
award there is, including Best of Show at the National ADDY Awards.
Where others saw nothing but an eyesore, the self-described “visual
thinker” saw an architectural diamond in the rough.
“The building was a horrible mess when
I first saw it,” Harrington says. “It had drop ceilings,
nasty brown paint with orange trim and a half-inch of various
candy drippings coating the floors. The windows had been boarded
up, inside and out, for 45 years.”
In his mind, he removed the candy goop and
saw a gleaming hardwood floor. He mentally subtracted layers of
plaster and paint and saw an all-brick exterior. Instead of drop
ceilings, he saw oak beams overhead. He envisioned the windows
without boards and realized they’d offer a nearly panoramic
view of the city.
It took a year of hard work, but his visions
panned out.
“On three sides, the walls are practically
all glass,” he says.
Now, when he and his creative team are thinking
outside the box, it’s not just a figurative state of being
but a physical reality.
Note: This story was published originally
in the fall 2004 issue of MIZZOU, the magazine of the MU Alumni
Association.
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Last Update:
November 15, 2007
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