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Office Edit: Office Reception Trends 2020
The Reception area of an office space is one of the first contact points a customer will have with your brand. Based on their visual experience, a customer will already make assumptions about who you are as a brand, and where you are going. It is therefore imperative that your reception area not only represents who you are as a brand but also showcase that you are evolving and growing by staying up to date with the latest trends in interior design.
“Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent” – Joe Sparano
With an emphasis being placed on personal relationships, sustainability and transparency in the 2020 corporate environment, design inspirations follow suit. The trend now is to design Office Reception areas to embody a Brand’s personality, character, values, and care for the environment.
Designers achieve this by playing around with colours and patterns, sustainable fabrics and design, natural elements and a new take on office furniture with the goal of conveying the message or character a brand wants to show the world.
Beauty of Diversity
We live in a highly globalized and inclusive world which led to the cultural transformation of the corporate environment. Companies in modern-day consist of a dynamic and diverse workforce. This diversity is not only experienced in the case of gender, race, and ethnicity. In the new era of globalization and diversity, it now includes people from different countries, religions, sexual orientations, disabilities and even different generations (think baby boomers, Gen Y, X, and Z, etc.).
While all these differences can be challenging in a corporate environment, modern companies choose to embrace, respect and celebrate these differences as they prove to be an asset in broadening a Brand’s skill set, vision, and opportunities.
In celebration of this corporate diversity, designers are creating office reception areas that showcase the different worlds coming together.
The first technique used to embody diversity is designing with clashing colour palettes. Here designers move away from traditional, complementary colours and focus on using bold clashes, bright rainbow-colours, and daring contrasts.
The second technique is doing so with a combination of bold patterns and textures in your décor or furniture. Both techniques incorporate elements that are usually not mixed in design, but now showcase the actual beauty that is found in modern day diversity.
Responsible Design
Modern day consumers take pride in caring for the environment and reducing their carbon footprint. They are smart, informed, gain all the knowledge they need with the touch of a button and are no longer just fast consumers of products. They think about tomorrow and how the decisions they make today will affect others, and the world they live in, in the long run. Consequently, these customers value companies that do business responsibly and sustainably.
Forbes reported on a study done on the modern-day consumer. Based on this study they found that:
- 68% of millennials bought a product with a social or environmental benefit in the past 12 months.
- 87% of consumers will have a more positive image of a company that supports social or environmental issues.
- 88% will be more loyal to a company that supports social or environmental issues.
- 87% would buy a product with a social and environmental benefit if given the opportunity.
- 92% will be more likely to trust a company that supports social or environmental issues.
Companies, therefore, must adapt to the millennial market’s needs if they want to stay relevant and profitable in modern day.
In response to this, Interior Designers are incorporating responsible design to Office Reception areas as this is the first contact point with the customer. This is done using sustainable fabrics and more conscious materials. The design will move away from man-made or animal cruelty fabrics and move towards environmentally- and animal friendly fabrics and materials.
These include recycled wood and fabrics, organic cotton, bamboo, and recycled plastics.
Resimercial
Corporate environments have become highly pressurized, connected and require employees to be in an “always on” mode. This has resulted in higher employee stress levels and an increase in employee burnout.
In response to the alarming drop in employee well-being, designers researched and brainstormed concepts that would assist in improving employee mental health. Through this the Resimercial interior design trend was born.
Resimercial is a growing office interior design trend that incorporates the soothing elements of home design to office spaces. It is the consolidation of residential design and commercial design with the goal of making a commercial space more comfortable, calm and positive. The idea is to create a visual space that will make employees and visitors feel more at home, thus decreasing their stress levels and opening them up to better communication and relationship-building.
This is done by adding home design elements such as rugs, comfortable couches, standing lamps, artwork, soft ambient lighting, modern coffee tables, magazines etc. to Office Reception areas. As a result, reception areas will be transformed into welcoming hubs that reduce stress, increase engagement and boost positivity.
Monochromatic Expression
A potential customer’s purchasing decision is greatly affected by colours as a colour affects how a product or brand is perceived. A Brand’s colour affects how a potential customer views the brand’s personality. The right company and logo colour can, therefore, differentiate your brand and become synonymous with your personality.
As modern customers buy more than just products and explore brand values, stories and personalities, your brand colour and the message it gives can become a vital marketing tool for your business. It is a visual expression of who you are, what you sell and what customers become part of.
To express this brand personality to customers, reception areas are now converted into monochromatic visualizations of brand colours. For example, if your brand colour is red, a large variety of red hues will be incorporated into the paint, décor or furniture in your reception area.
This will ensure that your brand becomes memorable to visitors and that they continue to think of your brand name when seeing the colour red in the future. Not only do you show your personality, but you ensure that your name and the colour become synonymous and that you will remain in the front-of-mind of the customer in the visual world.
Back to Nature
With employee well-being continuing to be a main corporate focus in 2020, designers are incorporating the nurturing sense of nature into office design. The Back to Nature trend is about more than just adding an odd plant to an office space. The idea is to breathe life into your reception area by integrating natural elements into your design. This concept helps strengthen the human-nature connection and as a result leads to reduced stress levels, calmer environments, and increased creativity.
The key design elements used to bring a space back to nature are natural wooden furniture and finishes, large windows and natural lighting, excess of indoor plants and grass or plant walls.
