Design | It's Time to Rethink the Boring Whiteboard

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I confess: I'm a whiteboard nerd. I've even written a five-part SmallBusiness.com how-to dedicated to stick-drawing on whiteboards. Despite my whiteboard dependence, I've never been a fan of the boring, standard rectangular board that can be found throughout most business offices. That's one of the reasons I've grown fond using wet markers to draw on windows for most of the past three decades.

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Recently, the Japanese design firm Nendo tackled the challenge of boring rectangular whiteboards with a concept product called, “Rolling Workspaces.” A team from Nendo noticed that no matter how weird an office got with its furniture, the whiteboards remained the same, according to the Co.Design website from FastCompany.

“That struck Nendo as odd. The primary purpose of a whiteboard, after all, is to spark creativity, but there was nothing creative about the whiteboard. Everywhere you went, they were white, rectangular, flimsy, and decidedly immobile: the most boring and uninspiring way to be creative imaginable.”

There's nothing boring about Nendo's concept whiteboards. They are big and round and can roll from room to room. To set these circular whiteboards up, you just tilt them against the wall. But the circular pattern isn't just for transport. Nendo also envisions an associated desk with a large slit in it, which can be used to “park” a whiteboard (or, for that matter, a bicycle) when it's not in use, says Co.Design.

VIA | Co.Design