With all of the buzz about branding the environment, it’s easy to question whether your logo colors should control the interior design of your workplace. Many clients ask – “Do I have to live in my logo?” Perhaps key brand colors are too overwhelming when used in large expanses or there is concern that brand standards may change. Fortunately, brands are multi-dimensional; although logos are a piece of a brand, they are not the entire story.
While a brand is signified by its key pantone colors and typefaces, it is characterized by much more. Graphic identity works as an informant in the design process, but does not have to dictate the color of every surface. Identities infused into the entirety of a space, not just paint colors, reveal the true culture of the brand.
The strategic balance of spatial relationships, finishes and furnishings with communication graphics, signage and wayfinding creates a platform to design space with intention.
For example, LogMeIn’s brand is taken to a whole new level by their new “brick + beam” workplace setting in the Innovation District. The space immediately conveys aspects of their culture and brand that their logo alone could not. The mill building setting, open office concept, unique + quirky meeting spaces all tell a story that a room full of their brand blue could not.
For Communispace at Atlantic Wharf, the base palette took on their signature blue and warm gray, while their secondary brand colors translated in accents that were used sparingly. The logo was incorporated into a supergraphic shape at the elevator lobby while curvilinear walls and an illuminated circular soffit elude to the logo as a dimensional form.
PUMA N. America owns “red” and while it may make sense to infuse red accents in key areas of their space, other colors and finishes are needed to not only make their signature red feel special, but to support their boldly colored products in a somewhat neutral way.
What works for you brand? Are your signature colors adding to or detracting from the atmosphere of your space?
Kayte Muse is Senior Environmental Graphic Designer at Spagnolo Gisness & Associates in Boston, Massachusetts.