"I found I could say things with colours that I couldn't say in any other way – things that I had no words for"
Georgia O'Keeffe
Nature has imparted our brains with psychological reactions to colour for millennia, and we can utilise this response when designing productivity-boosting workspaces. Colourful, vibrant workplaces have become increasingly popular in recent years, as designers become more attuned to its impact on motivation and productivity.
A psychological study at the University of Rochester found that red increases the speed and intensity of our emotions, leading to an increased sense of urgency. Great for direction attention to retail sales, but less than ideal in an office environment, where it can lead to anxiety and worry.
Conversely, hues like gem-coloured greens are great for boosting energy but may not be the best choice if your team need to remain focussed throughout the day.
With colour being an important element of office design and proven to affect productivity, your design choices may initially seem like a daunting proposition.
Here are our handy tips to adding colour into your office without a major repaint job.
Adding colour through furniture
Furniture is a practical way of quickly adding colour into your office space, allowing you to introduce productivity-boosting hues without overwhelming the senses.
Furniture choices can provide us with a great opportunity to be more adventurous with colour and define the purpose of our spaces. Creative furniture choices can also add character and create talking points around the office that have a positive effect on team morale, energy and culture.
Create consistency through brand
Culture, collaboration and company values are an extremely important element within the modern workplace and you may choose to further support this affinity with the company by utilising brand colours to accentuate your office design.
Whether you choose to add your company logo to your office or incorporate your brand colours into your design choices, using a consistent colour palette throughout your office creates a unified, coherent, and welcoming environment.
Start with the emotion
It is likely that we know the feeling we’re looking to generate within a space, e.g. collaboration and energy in shared meeting rooms, focus and concentration in quiet zones.
As a great starting point, use these basic tips to think about your colour choices:
· Cool blues can create a calming effect but may make spaces feel colder than usual.
· Dynamic reds support urgency and energy but can make some people feel additional stress
· Earthy greens and browns are fantastic to create harmonious feelings but can lack dynamic energy
· Bright yellow and orange tones can denote energetic lively environments but carry the risk of potentially negatively affecting focus and concentration
Inject personality with a twist
Another way of injecting some colour into the workplace is through graphics, artwork and features like living walls. Incorporating these innovative and artistic features will inject your office with energy and personality.
A simple but effective way to add colour into a space, is to use feature mural walls, inspired by the colours and artwork that support the feeling within the room. Forest photos and scenes depicting nature have been consistently shown to bring the ‘outdoors indoors’ and create relaxing calm spaces perfect for quiet individual work. Whereas dynamic images of movement and engineering can support feelings of creativity and innovation.
Get in touch today to transform the productivity and energy within your office with our bespoke office furniture solutions.
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