If there’s one thing that I live by, it’s this: Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. Working at SolutionSet (my old employer) was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. The company was still an infant, and I grew as a designer as the company grew six times it’s size. After three and a half years, I started to get comfortable. A little too comfortable.

And so, after some truly heartbreaking goodbyes, I left a 300+ person, full-service marketing agency to a small, 8-person design studio. Hard as it was, it was the right thing to do.

That’s how I got started working at Mule Design Studio. I am honored to be part of such a tight-knit, talented group of people, and I couldn’t have had a warmer welcome as a newcomer on the team. Being at a small company obviously means doing more, which I am embracing to the fullest! I’ve been hired on as both a designer and a front-end developer, which will finally give me a nice healthy dose of both creative and technical thinking.

So far, so good. I’ve enjoyed going into work everyday, mostly because it doesn’t feel like work. Heck, the office feels like a giant living room. Allow me to share…

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Yay, cool business cards! So exciting! I love business cards with personality. Bonus points for the Emigre font and the furry animal. Hrm…it seems that most of my design work involves an Emigre font and a furry animal. Ah, I am home.

Lobby & Kitchen

Welcome to Mule! You’ll know you’re here when you see…well, a kicking mule. It’s a small office in an old building near South Park in San Francisco.

You’ll see a conference “room” when you walk in. The studio is all open space; the bookshelf divides the conference room and one of the work areas.

The backside of the front door. No clue where that arcade game came from, but it looks fun to play.

Lots of great books on design…some I already own, many that I’ve been coveting over the years.

Our embarrassing bathroom key. The good thing is, there’s no chance we’ll forget to bring it back. We share two bathrooms with the other offices in our hall, and it hasn’t been a problem at all.

Nila is Crowd Control (office manager) at Mule. She started a week before I did.

The conference table is made out of cardboard. It’s truly amazing. I’m paranoid about spilling anything on it, though.

Nila is working hard. I would also like to mention that we don’t have any Microsoft products. Hallelujah!

Our tiny kitchen and a constant reminder that we need to do dishes. Otherwise we are bad, bad people.

We watch lady gaga videos at lunch.

There’s a small room to the side that no one really uses other than the office puppy (more on him later). He’s sleeping in his bed right now – he’s that black lump in the corner.

The Front Room

The office is divided into two sections – a front room and a back room. The front room is where the beginning of the projects happen (business development, management, strategy), the back room is where the last half of the project happens (design, content, development).

This is the front room.

Nila’s desk and one of the many gorgeous city posters in the office by Ork City Posters.

The ball chair is soooo nice to sit in. Its therapeutic, actually.

Erika Hall’s desk. She’s one of the co-founders of Mule.

The Back Room

I sit back here with the lead developer, creative director, and content strategist.

Here’s my desk, with a shiny new computer (that they’re letting me keep!) and a fuzzy black puppy in my lap. He’s so warm.

I received my new Mirra chair in the mail today. I chose green for the top and grey for the bottom. Hooray for comfy seats!

Design director Mike Monteiro and content strategist Nicole Jones having a serious discussion (not).

The desk of a writer.

Left: Mike painted the “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth” piece. Right: I think the visualize bat may be my favorite thing in the office.

Everyday, the Thai restaurant downstairs serves a $6, two-item lunch buffet. We can check out what they’re serving just by looking through our window.

Toys

The coolest thing about the office are the toys. There are toys everywhere you look. If there’s any inch of surface exposed, it will be covered by a toy the next day.

Mao sits on Mike’s desk. Bike storage is in the back of the office.

Toys, toys, everywhere…

Cereal box with a freaky baby on it, a monkey, and a unicorn. Why, I don’t know. But I like it.

More toys at Mike’s desk. He likes sports.

Office Puppy

Our office puppy rocks! Meet Rupert. He’s the sweetest, most adorable lap dog you’ll ever meet.

Rupert has a wart. Poor Rupert.

He’s always hungry…

…and sleepy.

Nicole’s chihuahua Geoffrey usually isn’t in the office, but she brought him in today. He’s miniature.

Mule T-shirts

Sometimes, we’re known more for our t-shirts than our design! Mule makes hilarious t-shirts. Check out our t-shirt store.

Me, modeling my first Mule t-shirt for our t-shirt Flickr pool. It says “Get Excited and Make Things”, not “Get Excited” (although that seems strategically placed). The shirt couldn’t be more appropriate for me. I mean, when am I ever not making stuff?

Some of the out of print ones are hilarious.

Our t-shirts are stored in a bank vault.

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