The office is one of the places where people spend most of their time throughout the day. For that reason, it should be well-organized and style to make workers comfortable and improve their performances. The workplace has to be bright and pleasing, warm and bathed in natural light so the people who work there want to stay since they feel safe, content and relaxed. An office must be comfortable, give aesthetic pleasure, reflect one’s essence, personality and be in line with what the worker wants to achieve and convey.
Office design and styling is about creating a space that encourages productive work, leaving room for employee creativity. There are many interior design factors that contribute to a positive and nice-looking workspace, such as: lighting, color, plants, art, furniture, among others. STYiLES is giving image consultants who offer the office styling service key tips on how to organize and style workspaces. From high-quality furniture to the interior design, find out how to enhance the offices of your customers so the spaces suit their personality and allow them to work better.
HOW TO STYLE AN OFFICE?
We have recently moved to a new office. Here are the pictures of the before and after for you to see a great example of office building and styling.
BEFORE
AFTER
1. Start by making small reforms
The first thing you should do is adapt the office to your clients’ needs as much as possible. You can do it yourself with minor changes and renovations, or you can hire a specialist interior design company to help you build the office that your clients always wanted to work in. If you have the opportunity to carry out reforms, it is best to hire a company dedicated to personalized decoration that does the painting, installation of the air conditioning, glassware, among others.
2. Choose the right colors
Painting is the easiest and most effective way to give your clients’ offices a totally new and renewed look. Simply by changing the color of the walls, you can build a totally different and inspiring office. If you want to achieve a calm, relaxing and pleasant environment, opt for softer colors such as pastel shades. If you combine black and white in the right doses, you will get a modern, elegant and sophisticated office; while the blue tones invite productivity.
On the other hand, a simple wall painted orange will give a unique and vital touch to your client’s office, while turquoise blue makes the space calm and balanced. If you do not decide on a color, you can always choose to reflect the colors of your clients’ corporate image in their office with a sophisticated style.
3. Get plants and flowers
Regardless of whether your clients like plants or not, you should consider including at least one in their office because it has been proven that plants do not only enrich the space but also improve people’s productivity. A Cardiff University study has shown that offices with plants make workers feel happier in their surroundings, more focused and 15% more productive. In addition, they reduce stress, increase the productivity and improve general well-being.
4. Add a personal and corporate touch
Since your clients will have to spend so many hours in their offices, you should build a workspace that inspires them and transmits their work values. The corporate image is the perfect inspiration to give color and personality to your clients’ offices and differentiate them from competitors. If you want to give it a more professional and corporate touch, you can place personalized vinyl, posters, canvas and other decorative printing elements that enhance your clients’ brand image.
5. Shop a good desk and a comfortable chair
Beyond aesthetics, whether your clients have a home office or a workspace at work, it is important that the office has an ergonomic design to reduce stress and boost productivity. You must get a desk of a size according to the tasks that your clients are going to carry out and where they can also have space for a computer and the work tools that they are going to need on a day-to-day basis. The height should generally be between 73.66 and 76.20 centimeters. The best colors for desks are white and light or dark wood tones.
It is just as essential to have a good chair that facilitates a good gesture, protects your clients’ spine and favors their work. The first thing you have to keep in mind is that it is the chair that must adapt to your clients’ bodies. Choose a seat with a preferably adjustable backrest that fits your client’s back and offers support to their lower back. As well, the chair has to be adjustable in height and wide enough to allow them to have space around them and be comfortable. Chairs with armrests help to give support and rest to both the elbows and the forearms and reduce the feeling of fatigue in the cervical area. If you select a chair with armrests, make sure that its length allows the chair to move closer to the table. The best color for a chair to work is black.
7. Keep a strategic order
Place everything your clients need daily to work on their desks and try to keep it close so they do not have to waste time looking for tools and objects that they are going to need. As for the shelves, they are very useful for organizing everything your clients are going to use when working less often. Opt for vertical shelves with many divisions where your clients can place papers, filing cabinets and other office supplies.
8. Make sure there is good lighting
Ideally, the office should have good natural lighting, which will also make it look larger. But, if your clients’ workspaces do not have any windows nearby where a lot of light comes in, you can always select specialized lamps for offices to provide that tone that does not tire your clients’ eyes and gives them the right mood to work. You can buy the lamps through an online store, where you can see all the models in detail and choose the ones that best suit your clients’ styles and needs. For example, you can choose a sophisticated ceiling lamp or an elegant floor lamp.
9. Pay attention to the atmosphere and vibes
You can apply some Feng Shui tips and tricks in the workspace. One of them is that the table should not face the wall, since it symbolizes a solid wall of obstacles in front of your professional career and you would also have an unprotected back. This way, you have a kind of wall that protects your client from behind (there should be no windows or doors) and, at the same time, your clients can see who enters the workspace at all times. Another important detail of this oriental philosophy is to bet on natural wood furniture, since it makes good energies flow more easily. Moreover, glass furniture makes people work faster.
10. Create a relaxation corner
It has been proven that people are more productive and imaginative if they incorporate moments of relaxation into their work activity. Thus, we recommend you to create a relaxing area in the office, a small space for reading and relaxation, to achieve a peaceful environment that refreshes and charges your clients’ minds, something that they will need if they are going to work alone for many hours.
11. Hang works of art on the walls
Talking about work is undoubtedly talking about innovation and talking about innovation is entering fully into the field of creativity; therefore business and creativity go hand in hand inexorably. Creativity has the virtue of lighting and keeping alive the flame of motivation and that in the short, medium and long term increases the productivity of workers.
Betting on creativity and innovation helps communicate the brand image and work values. The decision to bet on a more emerging, young, classic art or of different themes or styles can directly and clearly define what the mission, vision and values of the worker and/or company are. The key is to do it in a clear and direct way so that the pieces and the messages contained in the art really help to communicate the essence of the business.
