Since I started Mark Boulton Design last August, I’ve been working at home. It’s been mostly fun, but the words of Andy kept ringing in my ears loudly as time went on.

“Get out of the house as soon as you can afford it” would rattle around my head like some crazy mantra. Andy’s point was, sooner or later the two environments would merge; home and work. You’d end up doing the laundry whilst at work, and designing when you’re supposed to be enjoying a nice evening with your wife. He wasn’t wrong.

As of last week, Mark Boulton Design Ltd. has a new home.

I’m sharing offices with a web development company I know well; Beanlogic. We’ve been developing Flow together for ages now (yes, yes, it’s coming) so we all get along well.

The new desk and Beanlogic: Keeran, Kate and Martyn Elwyn is missing from this shot, but he sits to my right.

The new desk and Beanlogic: Keeran, Kate and Martyn (Elwyn is missing from this shot, but he sits to my right).

The new office occupies two rooms on the top floor of an old dock offices building in Sunny Cardiff Bay. For those of you who have watched the apalling Torchwood, the office is just around the corner from the secret exit/entry point near the funny fountain, mirrored sculpture thingy. For those who are familiar with Cardiff, I’m just around the corner from the Oval Basin, the Millennium Centre and the new Senedd (the Welsh Assembly Government building). It’s a nice place to be, especially in summer.

Back to the half-hour commute and having to make sandwiches (when I remember). I’m actually really enjoying it at the moment. The commute gives me a degree of separation which wasn’t there before and there’s a level of office banter which was all but absent when I worked at home (I don’t really count the Postman as a colleague).

To go with the new digs is a new business website (which has been on the go since SXSW in March) and I’m so looking forward to designing the letterhead and new biz cards. Print is really a treat sometimes. Like cooking, print design is nice to do occasionally, but if I had to do it for a living, it’d do my head in.

I said when I first started this ‘working for my self’ thing, I’d try and document every step. Well, as predicted, I haven’t. But this is a pretty big landmark for me and the business and I just wanted to put it down for the record so I can look back in a few years time.