Using branding elements in your office interior is an important part of conveying professionalism. But beyond impressing visitors, incorporating branding into your office design is a powerful way to reinforce your company mission and identity. It can help boost a sense of community among your employees and contribute to establishing trust with clients and customers.
Branding in office design is more than just slapping your company logo and colors on all the walls and furniture. Striking the perfect balance between brand imagery, ergonomics, and aesthetics will help keep your team inspired and focused. If you’re embarking on the exciting project of designing your office space, here are some suggestions for how to make your brand shine through:
Shapes that Mirror your Logo
Your logo is the most important piece of branded imagery that your company has, and undoubtedly you put a lot of time and energy into designing a logo that suits your business perfectly. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you want to plaster it everywhere. For a more subtle effect, you can use the lines and shapes from your logo throughout your office design scheme to achieve a visual unity.
Geometric shapes are highly versatile and can be found in a stripped down version of most art and design works. Shapes that are reminiscent of your logo can be worked into patterns for furniture and carpeting. You can also pick out desk surfaces with these shapes.
Wall Murals
Murals are not only a fabulous way to fill empty space with visual interest, but they can do a great deal in establishing your brand’s identity. Since the first time primitive humans illustrated the hunt on a cave wall, murals have endured as one of mankind’s favorite ways to tell stories.
An office wall mural gives you a ton of space to artfully portray who you are and what you do. And with such a vast canvas, your options for how to fill the space are limitless. Choose cityscapes to tie your identity to a place; feature typographic quotes that reinforce your company voice; showcase art or design work that illustrates your services. Wall murals are highly versatile and offer a lot of aesthetic appeal, so it’s no surprise that many of the biggest names in tech commission artists to paint large murals in their corporate offices.
Your Work as Art
Is there any better representation of your brand than your product and services? A series of canvas photo prints or vinyl decals showcasing samples of your work is an excellent way to both brand your office space and celebrate your achievements.
Companies that sell consumer goods may choose to display some of their more artful product photos. A non-profit may showcase photos of the projects they’ve funded and the people they’ve helped. And with some out-of-the-box thinking, there are also many ways to achieve this effect less literally. A doctor’s office could use artful anatomy prints as decoration. A data systems firm could use scatter charts as a design motif.
Put Your Values into Practice
At the end of the day, great brands achieve a whole lot more than just looking good. The most iconic brands of our time are companies that operate according to their professed values.
This kind of brand integrity happens on many different organizational levels, and one place it should not be ignored is in the office design. If your company is involved in environmentalist projects, your office should incorporates design elements using recycled materials and of course be energy efficient. If your company aims to promote collaboration and open dialogue, glass paneled rooms may foster this kind of energy better than opaque ones.
Your office space should be living proof of your company values, so it’s important to devote adequate consideration to the question of how you will demonstrate these commitments through design.
Your office is ultimately a representation of your company, regardless of whether customers will ever see it.
About the Author
Joe Robison is the Marketing Director of Coastal Creative, a reprographics company in San Diego, CA, where he and his team work on all sorts of projects from vehicle wraps, to wall murals, to trade show materials. You can read his thoughts about SEO and Digital Marketing on his blog.
