Office Space & Corporate Branding: Ideas and Inspiration

Corporate branding is important for all companies

According to K2 Space, the workplace has become a strategic branding tool. A well-branded office space allows your customers and clients know what to expect from your company. More importantly, your workspace appearance helps shape your brand’s identity while leaving a memorable impression.

Office space branding is an important yet underrated element of running a business. It’s about much more than sticking your logo everywhere and assuming the job is done. Effective brand experiences are the ones that carry throughout the workplace.

If you want to run a successful working environment, you need to keep in mind the goals of corporate branding in the office space. In this guide, we’ll discuss branding ideas for your workspace and highlight how you can avoid undermining its desired effect.

Brand Identity

According to Architecture magazine Metropolis, an office space can be one of the most powerful tools in a company’s arsenal because it communicates brand identity to clients and employees alike. Having your office space reflect your brand’s values and principles is important. It’s a reminder that each employee is there to achieve a common goal and to help the company succeed.

An office space that speaks culture, morals and goals can effectively reinforce a positive brand experience, strengthen core values and motivate employees. Building upon your brand identity in the workspace is an opportunity to inspire others and create an immediate sense of credibility.

How: Brand from the inside out.

Identify your brand’s culture and values and use them to inspire your office space. A great idea is to position your product at the centre. In their Liverpool HQ office, John West has a testing kitchen as its central hub reinforcing what the food company is all about.

Avoid: Overcomplicating your brand identity.

Emotive Brand highlight that simplicity and clarity are key for brand design. Over complicating your brand’s identity can dilute the overall impact and make your brand less recognisable to those who matter to its success. Equally, over populating your office with your brand's logo and over-using bold brand colours can have a negative effect. Strong colours from your logo, like reds or blues are better served as accent finishes for cushions, or blinds, rather than adorning sofas, carpets and feature walls.

Client & Employee Satisfaction

Vision Branding Solutions identify key reasons why you should brand your office space:

• Client satisfaction: Bespoke offices environments can leave clients with a new level of confidence in your brand.
• Employee satisfaction: Enhancing the physical environment in which employees are working has a great impact on how staff view their companies which can increase productivity.

Whether a client or employee walks into your office, they should be able to tell what your company stands for and what you’re trying to achieve by the way you brand your workspace. From a client point of view, first impressions matter the most. Your office branding is the cue to your clients that they can trust you, your capabilities and reinforce that feeling of confidence between client and brand.

From an employee's point of view, they want to feel inspired when they go to work. A well-branded office enhances the working environment, promotes more productivity in your staff and impacts how they view your company.

How: Pay attention to the small details.

Office Interiors Benhar says you should consider small touches which present imagery of your corporate identity.

For example, a fashion house might place clothing-related pictures on the office walls or incorporate hanging clothing racks into the office environment.

Avoid: Alienating your clients and employees.

Unhappy clients and employees vote with their feet. If your visual cues don’t reinforce what your brand is about, you risk losing potential business and suffer from retaining your employee's services.

Consistent Branding & Message

Brand Implementation Company Identity suggests that the best place to create a consistent branding message starts in your office space.

A consistent brand and message matters, it will help your company to:

• Build trust: Customers and clients are more likely to trust your business.
• Provide clarity: Clear up confusion about who your organisation is and what you stand for.
• Promote authenticity: Demonstrate your core identity and show off who you are and what you’re proud of.

Balance is key to remaining consistent with your company’s message. According to HubSpot, straying too far from the core images and values that made your brand successful or attaching your brand to the wrong things will undermine your company.

A Healthier Office Space

When the average person spends a third of their life at work, it's important that your office space delivers a healthy atmosphere. Whether it's improving the performance of your employees, boosting morale or creating inviting working spaces, colour is a key component of the office space that can help achieve the desired results.

Did you know, a colour scheme is one of the most powerful aspects of office branding?

Your brand’s colours can influence the behaviour, emotion and the state of being of your employees and associates? Identified by Sec Interiors, certain colours can help improve productivity and well-being amongst others. Take a look at the psychology of colours below:

Blue: Universally known as an excellent colour for productivity. It is also a stable and calming colour that helps workers focus on tasks.
Yellow: Known as an optimist colour and can help stimulate creativity. It is also said to be one of the best colours for areas of teamwork.
Green: This colour is good for people who work long hours. It does not cause eye fatigue and helps workers remain calm and efficient. Green also helps reconnec us to the natural surroundings.
Red: Has been shown to increase heart rate, blood flow and evokes emotion and passion. Works best for furnishings, acting as a highlight for interior spaces.
Orange: Highly accepted amongst youths and represents happiness, success and determination. Use it to highlight the most important elements.

Your brand’s colours can help support a healthier workplace, for your employees and visitors. Depending on the colours your brands use, you can invoke a more positive atmosphere in the workplace, boost morale and even give people a sense of belonging in the office.

How: Enrich your office space with brand colours.

Brand colours can empower your office space and the working environment if it’s used in the correct way. Highlighting spaces such as breakout and communal areas where your employees can interact with one another can help promote productivity, reduce stress and boost productivity.

Avoid: Interrupting the effect of colour in your office space.

Depending on your brand’s colours, these should be used sparingly around the office. According to Open Workspace Design, too much blue can generate feelings of despondency and can severely hamper workplace moral. Yellow is unsuitable in offices that receive plenty of natural light.

Now that you have reached the end of this guide, you’re now ready to commence the branding of your own office space. We’ve identified a variety of benefits that corporate branding can achieve. Hopefully, you can take these away and inspire your very own branding ideas and remember, pay attention to the common mistakes to avoid undermining your company.