During the summer, locked in headline sponsor Capital and Centric’s office, our judging team came together to decide the final 45 offices that would make up our first Inspired Spaces North showcase.

The submissions that we received showed that the creative sector is definitely willing to invest in its workspaces, which in turn appears to be doing the trick in increasing creativity, productivity and business growth. Inspired Spaces North is all about shining a spotlight on these workspaces and opening doors that we wouldn’t normally get the opportunity to look behind.

It was a challenging task for the team, who were made up of representatives from Prolific North and Active Profile, Capital and Centric and supporting partners Zut Media and Brabners to deliberate make their decisions.

But they were not alone, they were deftly guided by Andrew Ruffler from RIBA Northwest to help them through the process before they made their final choices.

While we received an eclectic range of examples highlighting how every firm has its own idea of what is inspiring, there were some common themes throughout. Something that came up repeatedly in the discussions was how office space can sculpt and improve a business. Open layouts were also a common thread, businesses that previously had office space that was spread out over a number of floors with small offices had gone open plan and found areas that were bright open and helping the teams to be more creative and collaborative.

An example of this was RentalCars.com two office spaces in Manchester, the first which houses its Global Customer Service Centre and its main HQ located on Fountain Street.

Colour: Brightness and splashes of colour were clearly key to creating an innovative working environment. Our judges really liked smart uses of colour to keep an office space bright and attractive. This was most notable with Missguided HQ designed by Sheila Bird Group.

Location: Offices that go beyond being just located in a certain area were very popular. We saw a number of examples where a sense of place and being immersed in the local culture and heritage were massively important to businesses. Locations where developers have made an obvious effort to position their developments in areas that would encourage creativity and collaboration are definitely becoming more and more popular.

This is true of BBC North’s Quay House based at MediaCityUK

Ultimately we found from all of our final 45 that there is no single way to enthuse staff and creative a collaborative and colourful working environment. Our showcase certainly highlights that and also reveals the sheer depth of innovation that exists in the north.