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How to get your office on brand
By Paul Kelly
You’re looking good to the outside world - the brochure’s great, the website fantastic – but step back a minute - what does your office say about your brand?
The best designers, PR and advertising campaigns can all pull together to communicate a brand’s vision and values, but the idea people have about you can go in an instant if they turn up at your workplace and it doesn’t align with what they think you’re about.
Office design and build specialists Morgan Lovell create workplaces that deliver a consistent brand message. Here they offer ten top tips to get an office ‘on brand’ and playing an active part of the marketing mix.
1. First and foremost, consider what brand message is being sent through the office
Is your brand about innovation and creativity, but your office says 1970s boiler room? What are employees saying about the brand? Employees are your brand ambassadors or nay sayers - give them an office that reminds them what the business is about every day.
2. Brand core values
Think how the office can reflect a core value. An example might be sustainability - so introduce plenty of recycling areas across the office, choose paints with low amounts of toxins, use timber certified by the FSC and specifiy furniture, fittings and fixtures with a high content of recycled materials, which can be recycled in the future. Then communicate what you’ve done, perhaps in a plan that can be viewed in reception, or words on walls, to show those core values in action.
3. The reception area is the most important place to reflect the company’s brand
Look after the basics – use proper fonts, images and colours. Don’t feel obliged to have corporate colours splashed everywhere – but avoid those used by the competition.
4. Consider the names of meeting rooms
They say a lot about a business. How many creative businesses name their meeting rooms 1,2 and 3?
5. Think about show suites, presentation and seminar areas
This is one place to pay real attention, particularly when sales presentations and press launches take place. Something as simple as a lectern can send out the wrong message. Morgan Lovell uses its office to run seminars, which give people opportunity to see our product - the office!
6. Promote your business’s end product throughout the office
The office offers a real opportunity to showcase. Whether it’s something as simple as a display case or something elaborate where full scale mock-ups can be created, it’s all good publicity.
7. Customer brand journey
Get a 3D walkthrough done before an office design is signed off and get an idea of the customer journey. See it from their eyes as they walk through the workplace and see if it’s an impressive view.
8. Think about furniture
Is it futuristic or traditional? Stylish or about saving money? The choice of desks, chairs and breakout furniture should reflect the company.
9. Look at space planning
If a business is about collaboration, team work and flexibility, then perhaps open plan and team working spaces are best. Where confidentiality and discretion are key, then a more cellular office, with plenty of privacy is appropriate.
10. Finally, building signage
Make sure it’s not an afterthought. If an office is in a highly visible location, thousands of people will see the brand. Treat it like an expensive advertisement, because it often ends up as a picture in news stories.
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