Office Life

Working World

An office is more than a business; it’s a complete, self-contained culture, with its own laws (written and unwritten), passions, pains, pleasures, and higher power (money, most often). One day last week, we set out to capture the life of a single business, that of Publicis New York, responsible for campaigns for Heineken, Procter & Gamble, Stolichnaya, L’Oréal, and Whirlpool, among others. It’s a place where informal relationships and fun (there’s a pool table) can be as important as strict hierarchy. We photographed 55 people, interviewed them about their ambitions, charted their relationships, both social and professional (see links below). Here is the universe of a New York office, from A to Z.

Photos by Eliot Shepard for New York Magazine.