Your business’ style is how you present your company to the world. It includes everything from the design of your website to the way you answer customer phone calls. This style — the look and feel of your brand — should be consistent across all channels and touchpoints.
How can you start finding office decor ideas?
Finding your business’ style can seem like a difficult task, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are a few key places you can look to get started.
Watch your competitors.
What are they doing that you like? What don’t you like? Use their style as a starting point and then add your own twist to create something unique.
Learn from history.
In other words, if you can, look back at your brand’s former identity. Which aspects of its branding have and haven’t worked, and how do you know? Which areas could use the most improvement? What have you learned about your ideal style when researching competitors and their own histories? Familiarizing yourself with art and design movements in general will also help you define your goals.
Examine your target audience.
Get to know the people you’re designing for. What kinds of styles do they respond to? If you’re unsure, consider looking over some market research and usability testing — or even performing some yourself — to find out.
Look inward.
What kind of style represents your company’s culture and values? What is the ideal personality type of your average employee? Most importantly, you’ll need to find ways to translate these intangible concepts into themes that all five senses recognize.
Once you’re beginning to understand your brand’s style, put it to paper.
Hire an expert.
This will require finding a marketing professional to create branding guidelines for your website, social media, and marketing materials, including aspects of your brand, like its signature colors, fonts, and logo. Thorough guides like ours also describe the acceptable use cases of your logo and other branding elements, visual and tactile textures, types of language for content writing as well as interactions with customers, and more.
Sometimes, establishing your brand’s style with a graphic designer’s help can be simple and straightforward. With us, however, it’s often all-encompassing — even covering your workspace’s interior design and decor — because the rewards of experiential marketing are immense for everyone.
Collaborate on a mood board.
If you can, have your team work together on a physical or digital mood board full of color swatches, photos, patterns, and textures with the guidance of your designer. This will allow you all to get a better idea of the kinds of themes and qualities that words may not fully describe.
Continue investigating all the senses and how they make customers feel.
Branding typically focuses on visual elements, and it’s easy to understand why: sight is often the most noticeable. Nonetheless, some of the best branding and office decor ideas aren’t solely visible; they’re integrated with other senses.
How common are sensory associations?
Synesthesia is a phenomenon in which stimulation of one sense triggers a sensation in another sense — like “seeing” sounds or “tasting” colors. This fascinating trait is somewhat rare.
However, we all experience something similar by creating vague associations between different types of information every day. For instance, people of various backgrounds around the world tend to associate sharp consonants with angular shapes as well as vowels and soft-sounding consonants with rounded shapes, showing how our minds make predictable connections between abstract sensory details and concrete topics.
What does this mean for the everyday customer?
It means the chance for more enjoyment, engagement, and memorability.
Multisensory marketing creates an immersive experience that is great at grabbing and keeping attention in a saturated marketing landscape. It can reinforce the overall message of your brand through a network of creatively connected stimuli, leading to powerful emotions and increased loyalty.
Be sure to read this post for a detailed look at common experiential and sensory associations you might want to demonstrate not just in your art or design, but anywhere customers interact with your company.
Plus, for even more ideas about what to enhance when building your online and in-person brand, take a look at the chart below.
| Sight | Sound | Touch | Smell | Taste |
| Accent walls | Music, analog or digital | Tables or desks and chairs | Aromas from savory dishes | Savory dishes |
| Drawings, paintings, sculptures, and other types of artwork | Ambient noise in and outside of your business | Door, closet, and furniture handles | Aromas from baked treats | Savory snacks |
| Mirrors | Soundscapes | Textured walls and other surfaces | Fragrance diffusers | Fresh produce |
| Furniture | Team members’ literal tone of voice | The thickness, softness, or smoothness of the paper you use for print materials | Plug-in air fresheners | Baked treats |
| Stationery and other desktop or tabletop materials | Your company’s spoken slogan and jingle | Fabrics and other textiles | Scented candles | Candies |
| Rugs | Sound effects resulting from user interactions on your website | Bowls, plates, and other ceramics | Scent-infused textiles | Flavored drinks |
In addition to communicating these concepts with your designer, remember to incorporate what you’ve learned about the past, present, and expected future of your company, its competitors, and its customers into the discussion.
Ready? Set? Put it all into practice.
After your branding guide is complete, you’ll need to train your team on how to implement your style across all channels. These include your:
- Branding and collateral
- Website
- Emails
- Social media accounts and online listings
- Print and digital advertisements
- Office/workspace
- Interactions with customers
- Appearances in the press
This process often involves ensuring that your brand guide is accessible to your entire leadership and design teams, brainstorming more specific ways to apply your branding, and creating unique instructional documents for employees of particular departments.
What kinds of compromises might you need to make?
Naturally, the pages of a brand booklet will never cover each individual aspect of your business’ environment. A great guide spells out a detailed beginning, but it also leaves room for interpretation and even alterations based on:
- Team members’ preferences. Employees frequently show their individuality through their own personalities, fashion choices, and office decorations. Leave room for their own self-expression!
- Consumer demand. If foot traffic, buying patterns, and customer feedback change over time, and if you’ve ruled out other possible causes, your branding may need to shift — a little or a lot.
- Technical limitations. Let’s say the place where your business already resides is a small room with a low ceiling, but your branding and marketing materials suggest a minimalistic look with plenty of open space and breathtaking heights. If you need to do the best with what you have, think about the emotions you want to create or the ideas you want to inspire rather than the clearest pathway to those emotions and ideas. In this case, to create a sense of simplicity, serenity, and awe, you might paint the walls a calming light blue or display a painting with a few flat blocks of subtle yet interesting colors.
By generating inventive ideas and refining them as you go, you and your business will make great strides toward reaching unified goals.
Does your small business need tailored brand advice?
Our art and marketing firm can assist all stages of your branding efforts. For expert answers about any aspect of your brand, send us a message and we’ll be in touch!