
“Having an office that has an amazing roof deck or an incredible snack wall really conveys not only the cool things you get if you start to work here, but also the way the company thinks: they think beyond the bottom line.” Santos said of the start-up world, which has been notoriously male-dominated. “The competition for talent has become so intense in New York and San Francisco,” Mr. Lorin Stein’s office is a clear example of a modern office with a homey vibe. In a wider sense, a unique office is also a powerful recruiting tool, according to Homepolish co-founder and CEO Noa Santos, whose decorating business has designed offices for clients including Gilt, SONGS Music Publishing founder Matt Pincus, Codeacademy and shopping app Trendabl. He filled the loft with modern Knoll furniture and hung black-and-white photographs by Cecil Beaton and Imogen Cunningham-including a curious Nick Brandt portrait of a calcified bat over his own desk-showcasing a panache essential to a firm representing brands like Kate Spade and Elie Saab.
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Wilmot modeled the communications office after the open plan of a newsroom to foster the free flow of, well, communication (former mayor Michael Bloomberg would later popularize that layout). Public relations guru Paul Wilmot was at the forefront of the trend when he opened his agency on Avenue of the Americas in 1997. “She’s just a small speck on a daybed, with whimsical framed portraits of animals by one of my favorite artists, Hunt Slonem, hanging above her,” he enthused.

He also revealed his most cherished knickknack, a framed photograph of his newborn daughter.

“ forces the mind to think abstractly and critically at once-which serves as a great creative conduit for interesting marketing ideas,” he told the Observer. He even claims that staring at a provocative video work by artist Brian Bress, hung on the wall facing his desk, sparked the idea for the agency’s latest trend report, Visual Literacy. Alexander Jutkowitz, managing partner at digital marketing company Group SJR, uses his Flatiron District office as a gallery space for contemporary art with “attitude and spunk” that he hopes mirrors his own approach to marketing. The aesthetic revival is new to New York City’s male executives. He also believes investing in high-backed gray designer couches and eclectic lighting helped the startup, which hosts classes in business, design and technology, create the on-brand image they sought when they first launched in the Flatiron District.

“We average one game every two weeks,” he admitted. It not only reveals their strategic thinking and problem-solving ability, but it also allows them to stay connected. He and co-founder Brad Hargreaves sit side-by-side in their open-plan office on East 21st Street and keep a chessboard between their desks. “Design communicates your values-who you value, what you value and why,” General Assembly CEO Jake Schwartz told the Observer. The stigma of the metrosexual has disappeared, design is now aspirational, and men are realizing that how they decorate their surroundings matters as much as their tie color. “Men are starting to think, ‘Look, I’m spending so much of my time here, why shouldn’t it be great?’” commented decorator Jason Oliver Nixon of interiors company Madcap Cottage. In short, it’s a thoughtful, personal and curated workspace: bright day to the dark night of the drab wallpaper, laminate desks and La-Z-Boy chairs à la Michael Scott that ruled men’s offices in the late 20th century.
