TCF – Creative meets Creative
Written by Tara: Freelance Designer on Thursday, 17 of April , 2008 at 8:43 am
A guest post by Milosh Zorica
A major concern for most freelancers is establishing a place to work from. While working from your bedroom has its advantages, plenty of people, including myself, feel their productivity is lower at home. Simply put, home is not meant to be a place of work.
I’ve worked in a lot of different environments. From cafes (unfortunately, the UK hasn’t got as many places with free Wi-Fi as the USA does) to client’s premises, to shared offices. All of them, Different places with one thing in common – lack of community feeling and non-existent support for start-ups, freelancers and thriving entrepreneurs.
Imagine a place with great networking opportunities, where people with a creative approach to their work (though not necessarily involved the creative industry) congregate – a place that serves as a kind of business incubator. I’ve been imagining, in fact, dreaming about such a space.
Recently I came across The Creation Factory. A nice shared office in a very cool area (an abandoned brewery, just on Brick Lane, a short way from Liverpool Street and Shoreditch). The Old Truman Brewery itself is a great place, and home to many creative businesses. There are plenty of things to do after hours or when simply popping out for a boost of inspirational energy. The area has got various venues (shops, pubs, restaurants, clubs, galleries, records store, etc.) most people would love to have on their doorstep – definitely an interesting eco-system for unleashing creativity.
The biggest advantage of TCF is its added value – people! You have an opportunity to meet people doing wide variety of work, who share common values and hold a creative approach to their work. TCF is a sort of business incubator aimed at helping freelancers and start-ups grow in their own individual manner. People meet, share ideas, discuss and some even cooperate. On the first and third Thursday every month, ‘Show & Tell’ takes place at TCF; A session that runs for a few hours, where individuals can talk about themselves and what they do for 10 minutes each. Each participant shares their thoughts with others and receives valuable feedback. It also serves as a place to establish excellent connections and hopefully turn some great ideas into a reality. S&T is open to everyone, not only TCF members. Actually, some of us became members by visiting S&T first and then falling in love with the idea behind TCF.
TCF is really diverse. By being international (French, Serbian, German, British, etc.) and having its members do the various work (designer, 3D/stereography guy, writer, web hosting guru, value management expert, photographer etc.). Members are either permanent desk holders or ‘Gym Members’ (infrequent hot deskers). All have 24/7 access, with certain limitations subject to the type membership they hold.
This is one of the rare businesses where profit is not the main drive, but helping its customers earn more is, which subsequently is more beneficial to the company as a whole. They are quite picky about who they take on board. If your business seems to be unethical or they don’t like your attitude, you’ll be turned away. But, most likely you’ll enjoy the place and your work there.
Doug Mather, an experienced entrepreneur and a business coach, is more than willing to share his experience and knowledge and give you some great advices as to what might help your business grow.
The other chap behind TCF is Rob Chant. A physicist, designer, web developer, free thinker and a great source of ideas and inspiration. He shows up once in a while, so don’t miss the opportunity to catch him!
TCF is supposed to be an eco-system where members interact, communicate and cooperate, helping each other grow.
A great concept worth checking out! At least on S&T sessions, which are absolutely free and open to everyone.
http://www.thecreationfactory.co.uk
This post is from Graphic Design Blog
Category: Freelancing, Careers and Employment, General Graphic Design
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Comment by Szabi
Made Thursday, 17 of April , 2008 at 2:05 pm
That is absolutely fantastic. Thank you for sharing it.
Comment by Zach LeBar
Made Thursday, 17 of April , 2008 at 2:07 pm
wow. that sounds really cool. living in a little town on the East Coast of the U.S., i dont know if ill make it to one of those Show & Tell sessions, but i’d sure like to. that sounds like the perfect place for a freelancer to work. thanks for that article.
Comment by Tom
Made Thursday, 17 of April , 2008 at 2:10 pm
Hmmm. Are we talking about the same place?
I was a member of TCF for about 6 months. What drove me away in the end was the cliquey-ness and arrogance of many the other people who used the place.
When I was a new member, I’d occasionally politely ask an ‘old timer’ for help: how to load paper into the fax, where the washing-up liquid was kept, that sort of thing. The most common response was to be met with a snort of derision or a blank stare! It really did seem that everyone was just looking out for themselves - I even heard stories about one designer poaching clients from other members!
Unfortunately, it seems that the “we’ll turn you away if we don’t like your attitude” rule has created a homogenous gang of skinny-jeans-and-mullet-wearing shoreditch tw@ts. Everyone’s too cool for school.
There are much better shared office spaces in London, ones with a real sense of community and not just a collection of arrogant media trustafarians.
Comment by Tara: Freelance Designer
Made Thursday, 17 of April , 2008 at 2:20 pm
HHi Szabi and Zach, Thanks for your comments
Hi Tom, thanks for your opinion on the place its good to hear from all sides.
Comment by milosh
Made Thursday, 17 of April , 2008 at 9:02 pm
tom, some members really don’t have community feeling i absolutely agree. your input is valuable. thanks for sharing it. i work here for a short time. so far so good. presently i’m the only designer around.
Comment by Rob Chant
Made Thursday, 17 of April , 2008 at 10:21 pm
Thanks everyone for the comments.
It certainly was true for a while that we had a company working in there (who I won’t name, although I’d love to do so!) who were quite an anti-social bunch, unfortunately, and took up a lot of space.
They’re now long gone, and we have a bunch friendlier crowd in there now. We’re also working on providing a lot more in the way of facilities for members, and a new breed of on-line networking and collaboration tools. We’re aiming to be much more than just a shared office. We’re also open to everyone — very definitely not just creative types.
I also heard the ‘poaching’ rumour, but as with most rumours, the facts were quite different. The person from whom the client was ‘poached’ had actually said that they no longer wanted to work with this client, and freely gave away the contact details for the client. They only became embittered a bit later on!
Either way, and whoever’s right or wrong, there are always going to be conflicts now and then when a bunch of people start working together. I doubt anyone works in an office *completely* friction free.
Comment by vjedok
Made Thursday, 17 of April , 2008 at 10:33 pm
Sound very interesting place to be and to work at.
Glad you’ve settled there - at least for a while 
Comment by Gregory Moulinet
Made Thursday, 17 of April , 2008 at 11:14 pm
Great concept… I think I know what I need to do next time I pass by London.
Comment by Jordan
Made Friday, 18 of April , 2008 at 12:03 am
Wow, it sounds really interesting!
Comment by Doug Mather
Made Friday, 18 of April , 2008 at 9:26 am
Tom - thanks for your comments and I think you may have us confused with another place.
I’m the person who runs TCF and I have no record or memory of anyone called Tom ever working here, & we”re definitely small enough that I would know you.
The strangest thing is that the people whose attitude we tend not too like here, and discourage from joining, are exactly the type you describe in your post and “skinny-jeans-and-mullet-wearing” are definitely banned!
If I’m mistaken, I apologise if you had a bad experience here and invite you to contact me so we can learn from you.
Comment by David Airey
Made Monday, 21 of April , 2008 at 3:56 pm
Great to see Doug stop by and respond to Tom’s comment. If I was in London, I’d pay Doug a friendly visit purely on the back of the thoughts he’s left here.
Best of luck with it, Doug.
Comment by Tiju
Made Wednesday, 23 of April , 2008 at 10:40 am
seems like just the right place to work at!!!
Comment by LaurenMarie - Creative Curio
Made Friday, 25 of April , 2008 at 4:04 am
Sounds like a really awesome place to learn from people in a variety of fields as you go about your work. As a designer, it’d be great to get input from people from all different walks of life, too. Too bad that’d be like a 14 hour commute for me 
Comment by Amanda Vlahakis
Made Sunday, 4 of May , 2008 at 9:42 pm
We have something similar in Birmingham called the Custard Factory, which contains a lot of creative businesses. Apparently described as one of Europes largest concentration of creative businesses.
It can offer opportunities as I know a designer who has an office there and he’s gained some clients from within the building.
Personally I’m such a chatter box, with no boss to tell me to shut up and get on with my work I fear that if I didn’t work from home alone I’d spend all day talking instead of working, lol!
For instance when my husband gets home from work in the evening, even though I’m supposed to be working still I have a chronic issue with coming down stairs (my office is in the loft)to fetch a coffee, but spending about 45mins there chatting instead of going straight back to work.
One key from working at home is that you really do need to have a proper office within your home. I think it’s going to be hard to work from home without this formal working environment.
I have the entire loft as my office and I’m really productive here. I like working from home for the fact I can work at any time I like - I enjoy the flexibility of walking out of my office and into my home with no travelling time and vice versa.
Also for me, my two young children can ‘come to work’ whenever is required any time of the day :-))