Fitting Out an Office in Style

Whatever purpose you have an office for, it’s important that you are aware of how to fit it out properly. That is as true for a business office as a home office. There are a lot of things you’ll need to understand about this if you are going to succeed with it, including what you’ll need and how you are going to make it work. As long as you do grasp those things, you are going to find that you are able to fit out your office in style, and much more easily than you might have thought.

Let’s take a look now at some of the main things you can do to help with this. If you can keep the following in mind, you should find that you are going to end up with an office that really suits you and works for you as well as possible. The benefit of this to your business could be profound, so it’s certainly something to be aware of.

Start with Functionality

In general, you are going to want to make sure that you are keeping functionality front and centre with your office designs. That is going to help ensure that the office is genuinely likely to work well as an office, and won’t simply look good. So if you are doing that, you should find it really helps. Before you get carried away with details around colors and choosing your furniture, make sure that you are aware of how you will actually use the space.

It’s a good idea to map this out, so you can know exactly what kind of areas you need and how they are going to work. You’ll have to consider who will be working in each area, as well as what kinds of tasks are going to be done there and so on. Are you going to need some quiet zones, meeting rooms, collaborative spaces or breakout areas? If so, you’ll need to have these baked in to the design first and foremost, before you do anything else.

The layout and flow of the office should ideally support how your team actually works, not how a showroom would look. Remember that and it will help a great deal.

Invest in Good Furniture

This is a very simple thing, but it is likely to help you out a lot. If you are happy with the furniture you have, you’ll be much happier with the office space as a whole. Of course, it’s one thing knowing that and another actually making sure that you get hold of the furniture you want. So this is necessary to be aware of, but nonetheless you are going to find it hugely important to make sure you are investing in good furniture, in whatever way you can achieve that.

A stylish office does not have to be uncomfortable. In fact, it should be perfectly possible to achieve both ends at once. There is no use in filling the office with sleek modern chairs that leave everyone’s backs aching. You’ll ideally want to have ergonomic desks and chairs that offer proper support and flexibility, as that is going to make for a much better space for all. You should also consider the smaller details: which monitor stand to use, what bookcases, and so on.

For meeting rooms and common areas, you may want to look out for some pieces that are both inviting and durable. You really want your furniture to last, but you might also want it to look good and make a statement. So this is something that you might be keen to try and balance out as best as you can. If you invest in good furniture, you are also going to have much less in the way of future furniture budgets, which can be an enormous help as well.

Keep Consistent with the Aesthetic

Overall, it is helpful if your office has a consistent aesthetic throughout the entire palace. For this, you might find that it is a good idea to pick a palette, and to let this lead the process. That is exactly the kind of thing that can help in unifying the space, bringing it all together and making it much more effective as an office. It might be that you have a lot of variation in that palette - you might mix muted neutrals with natural wood - but the point is that this mix is the same throughout the space.

It’s not just about colors, either. The goal here is to align the visual identity of your space with the brand’s personality, and that will involve much more than just picking a few colors and seeing what happens. Cohesion is the name of the game, and it helps to avoid the look of a warehouse of mismatched furniture. If you can keep up with this, and you are able to retain some consistency, you are going to find that your office benefits greatly.

Get the Right Lighting in Place

Lighting really is everything when it comes to fitting out an office in style. If the lighting is not quite right, nothing else is going to work - for the simple fact that you need to have some way of making it all visible. The wrong lighting will have the wrong impact, and you are going to find that your office layout and design really struggles as a result of this. So this is something that is going to be really important for you to consider, and you should make sure you are aware of it from the start.

As it happens, getting the lighting right is actually relatively easy. You mostly just need to think about the ways in which your lighting choices affect mood and focus, or are likely to. Harsh fluorescents have surely had their day, and tend to drain people of energy, while dim lighting can have the effect of lulling them to sleep. It’s therefore prudent to aim for a mix of natural light, task lighting like desk lamps and ambient lighting too.

With the right balance, you’ll find that your space is going to be so much more stylish and ready to be worked in.

Consider Acoustics

You may not have put much thought into this yet, but this is something that is really important to consider if you are trying to make your office really sing. Sound can really be a problem with a lot of offices, as you may have noticed in workplaces you have spent time in previously in your life. It’s a good idea to make sure that the sound is being managed well, and largely this comes down to the art of acoustics, which might be simpler than you think to get right.

In open-plan offices particularly, sound can diminish and disappear easily. You might therefore find it helpful to use soft furnishings, acoustic panels and rugs to help absorb noise. You might even want to use plants for this effect too. Creating quiet pods or phone booths can give people the ability to focus much more easily as well. It's just one of those ergonomic things that you are going to find really helpful all in all.

Add Personal Brand Touches

A well-designed office should ideally be suitable for the business itself, and should help to tell the story of the brand. If you manage to achieve that, you will find that it’s really going to help to make your office a lot better, and it’s the kind of thing that is vital for you to think about. So make sure you are thinking from the start about some of the personal brand touches that you are able to make to your office space to really make this work.

It could be that you use artwork, brand colors, logos and design elements that reflect the company and its culture, or that you are going to put up a wall of team photos or a mural. This is exactly the kind of thing that will really help you to have a much more successful office.

Be Flexible & Allow for It

There is also a lot to be said for flexibility, and you should make sure that you are thinking about this early on in the design process too. Being flexible is the kind of thing that really helps you to keep your office looking great, but also working as well as possible. In particular, you should aim for an office space that is going to allow people to be flexible in how they use the space. If you can do that, it will mean that the office is much more suitable and that it really does the job. It’s amazing what this can do, so you should make sure that you are thinking about this if you get that right.

All in all, those are some of the things you might want to think about to help ensure that you are fitting out your office right.