Company boss John Donovan has had a whale of time chasing rainbows - or at least the colours of the rainbow.

For Mr Donovan, a director of Bradford direct marketing firm JDA, has spent the last few months overseeing the transformation of the firm's Phoenix House headquarters with brightly-coloured walls and big paper flowers of all shades.

And the new-look he has given to the two floors of the building - with his chairman wife Judith's approval, of course - has made a world of difference to the atmosphere in the company which employs 60 staff.

The colourful interior of the reception and office spaces in the Thornbury office block has cost the firm nearly £13,000.

"But the place needed a lick of paint and some colour, and it was good to see the back of the greys and blues we had in the building since we moved in during 1989," he said.

The inspiration for months of creativity and decorating came from the hiring of Feng Shui expert Jane Purr from Blayden near Newcastle.

He said: "It costs nothing like £13,000 to make changes to office space. In fact, some of the things we did were quite inexpensive, like using an old exhibition stand to create the new reception desk".

But Jane Purr's visits to the company encouraged Mr Donovan to do more than move desks into places which best suited their users.

She suggested the firm re-organise its reception area so that when people came out of the lift or up the stairs they were greeted with a smile from the receptionist whose face they previously could not see because she was seated to the right of the entrance door.

"We also moved out trophies from inside the offices to the reception and put them in a cabinet and displayed our certificates in the shape of a bird so that people sitting in reception could see what we had done," Mr Donovan added.

The idea of that was to display a firm's achievements and give visitors a good impression.

Jane Purr also did assessments of people and took measurements and used a series of compasses to asses the best places for them to sit.

"We were told she was checking for people's orientation which means that some people are best facing east and others west so we had to move some of the desks - but it would have proved too expensive to move them all," he said.

"One of the staff members has put a goldfish bowl in her office to add to the interest and we have bought £1,000 of colourful paper flowers which is the thing which has made the most difference."

He said he wished he had carried out the changes years ago as the current atmosphere would have changed the way people work a lot sooner.

"We cannot measure the good it has done to introduce many of the Feng Chui measures and brighten up the building, but we see it as a good investment in the firm and it is something I would recommend to others."

Jane Purr can be contacted on 0191 4402276.

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