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Besides creating an inviting office, you can take your office design one step further by integrating your company’s brand with it. This is a powerful way to remind everyone what your company is all about.

 

Reception logo

Mounting your company logo on the wall in the reception area is a must. It’ll be the first thing people see as soon as they step through the front door.

The logo will often give you inspiration on how to style the rest of the office. If you play your cards right, your company branding will follow clients and staff throughout the office from the moment they lay eyes on your logo at reception.

 

Interior design style

Drawing from the aesthetic cues of your logo, you can determine what materials and architectural features best reflect your company branding. In addition, focusing on your company mission and values will also give you interior design ideas.

Something else you can consider is your company’s industry. If your business is tech-oriented, a modern or contemporary interior design may be the best fit. Or if you provide services to high-net-worth clients, you may opt for a more traditional look.

 

Furniture style

After you’ve narrowed down the office interior design style, choose furniture that would match and reinforce that style. When picking out furniture, remember that function and comfort is just as important as style. It’s key to integrating ergonomics into your office design.

 

Colour scheme

The colour scheme makes the most visual impact in reinforcing your company’s branding throughout the office. Again, your company logo will inform you on what colours to accentuate.

You can make use of colour in a variety of ways from wall and door paint to flooring surface and furniture upholstery.

 

Window treatments

You can even stamp your brand on the way you cover your windows! That can mean printing your company logo directly on the window treatments themselves or simply getting them in your company colours.

 

Room or zone names

Another creative company branding technique is through the names you give each room or zone in your office. If you name them in a way that links back thematically to your company name or business model, your clients and staff will subconsciously think about it every time they enter the room.

 

These ideas are great examples of how changing your office design will pay off in the long run.

 

Picking out furniture for your restaurant can be a huge chore if you don’t keep the criteria that matter the most at the top of your mind:

 

Layout

Once you know the layout of your restaurant’s dining area, you’ll know exactly how much room you have to play with. It’ll also give you an idea on what big pieces to order first.

For example, are you going to have a booth section? Do you need large tables for banquets? Then you can see whether any furniture needs to be custom-made, which will make the next part of style easier to manage.

 

Theme

Your restaurant theme will organically grow out of the design for an attractive dining area. The theme will then inform you right away on your ideal furniture style.

What’s the first impression you want customers to have as soon as they step through the restaurant door? What details will help you maintain that feeling throughout their meal?

 

Comfort

Here’s another good question to ask yourself: how long on average do you want your customers to stay for a meal in your restaurant? The longer you want them to stay and spend on expensive menu choices, the more upholstered cushions you need to bring out.

Fast-food restaurants or canteens will lean more towards functional designs that encourage customers to finish their meals quickly and be on their way. Other restaurants whose customers will sit upwards of an hour for a meal will opt for inviting furniture customers can relax in.

 

Durability

Remember not to overlook quality either. The furniture you choose should be treated as an investment and as such, you want them to have a long time horizon. The best way to do that is to make sure the material is durable enough to withstand all the wear and tear during opening hours.

 

Maintenance

The restaurant industry is a messy business and you have to account for the efforts spent on upkeep. While you do your best to invest in the highest-quality material your renovation budget allows, you should also consider how easy it is to clean them. This means low maintenance for both daily cleanings and periodic deep cleanings.

 

Cheers to a good furniture hunting trip!

 

So you’ve made the decision to get your luxury home custom-designed and built. The sky may be the limit on how you’d like it to look, but where can you find inspirations to help you narrow down your choices?

 

Your dream house

The very first place you should look is none other than the house that stands in your dreams. Everyone has one; some may be foggy while others may be as bright as day. The point is that looking for inspiration in your dream house first means that you’ll eventually come up with a design that resonates with you.

Take a good look at your dream house. What features make it amazing to you? Those dream features would then solidify into must-have features you can ask your design-build contractor to include.

 

Favourite houses or buildings along your daily commute

Travelling to and from work may seem boring after a while, but the brain can pick up a surprising amount of information even when you don’t notice it. Next time you’re on your way to work, pay attention to what houses or buildings always make you take a second look. What is it about them that stood out to you?

If you pinpoint the architectural details that you liked about them, those can also be filed away as details you may like to have in your luxury custom home.

 

Architectural history

It’s fascinating how far architecture has come along since our cave-living days. If you’d like to ground your home with specific architectural styles, this is the way to do it.

Look at the evolution of different architectural styles and either re-imagine them or mix-and-match elements from each that can work together. The result may end up being a pleasant surprise beyond imagination.

 

Published works from architecture experts

You can also get ideas straight from the experts. Architecture trends are constantly changing and you can read the latest from books, magazines like Architectural Digest, or a whole host of architecture design blogs.

The great thing about getting inspiration this way is that you’re learning from the best of the best. And that would be a big plus if you want your custom home to be top-notch.

 

Once you know what you want, the easy next step is to communicate that to your design-build contractor.

 

Ergonomic assessments are becoming commonplace in offices. However, they’re often brought in as an afterthought far too late in the game.

 

But what if you can build your office with ergonomic features right at the start? Here’s how you can set the stage for your staff to be in a comfortable working environment:

 

Lead by example

Start off by actively promoting the idea of taking breaks. And what better way is there than a break room that’s actually inviting? By doing so, you eliminate the stigma of employees visibly taking breaks.

To make sure the break room makes the right impact, it’s important to first keep it separate from the lunch room. That way, you’re catering to two different crowds of people: those who want a high-energy recreational break in a creatively designed lunch room and those who want a quiet relaxing break. You can then fill the quiet break room with comfy sofas, armchairs, and yoga mats.

 

Accessibility of office equipment

Office equipment should be placed as close as possible to the staff who use them the most. It may seem like a trivial trip each time going from desk to equipment, but the added stress of multiple trips will build up in the body by the end of the day.

This may mean centrally locating general equipment like photocopiers so everyone travels a similar distance to use it. And if your office layout is split into team zones that have their own specialized equipment like 3D printers, those equipment should be situated closest to the corresponding team zone.

 

Convenience of plugs and ports

If you have a nomadic office layout, it’s especially crucial that your employees have reliable wireless access wherever they happen to be working in the office. You should also plan out your office wiring system thoroughly so that plugs and ports are easily accessible whenever they’re needed.

Maintaining this convenience prevents your staff from having to perform extreme acrobatics just to find a working plug or port.

 

Custom-fit workstations

After taking care of the common work environment, you also have to allow room for personal adjustments. Everyone’s body is different so it’s only fitting that your staff get to fine-tune how their workstations are set up.

Your office can provide that flexibility through sit-stand desks so your employees have the option of changing their postures. As for chairs, they should be adjustable ergonomic chairs with lumbar support. When an employee switches to standing up though, issue ergonomic mats to lessen the pressure on the knees.

Monitors and keyboards should also be mounted on adjustable stands for further tweaking of angles. Even lighting at each work station should be customizable with individual lamps!

 

By keeping ergonomics at the forefront of your office design, you’ll retain employees with high productivity a lot longer.

 

After designing an attractive dining area, it’s the kitchen’s turn to get a makeover. To get a restaurant kitchen that hums along efficiently, we need to first identify what the different zones in the kitchen are and how the workflow between them mesh together.

 

Inventory zone

This is the source of all magic in the kitchen. The more organized this zone is, the smoother the rest of your kitchen operations will be. With that in mind, make sure this zone is near the back door so that bulk foods and ingredients that get delivered there can be sorted right away into either cold or dry storage. You may even want to leave a wider floor space in the receiving area to give your staff more room to carry out inventory duties.

Non-food items, of course, should be stored separately near the zones that will use them the most. For instance, stock cleaning supplies near the dishwashing zone and stack clean dishes next to the food preparation zone.

 

Food preparation zone

The kitchen staff are the first ones in the restaurant to arrive for work every day as they rush to get menu ingredients chopped, pre-cut, and mixed before customers start coming in. All that business is done in the food preparation zone, which is where most of the heavy-lifting in the kitchen is performed.

To make their jobs easier, place this zone as close to the food storage area as possible. Provide the staff with enough counter space and chopping blocks to separate raw meat and produce work. Sinks for washing vegetables are also important, as are specialized food processing or mixing equipment that fit your restaurant menu needs.

 

Cooking zone

Add in some heat and the final dish is complete! The cooking zone houses all the hulking equipment and appliances in the kitchen. You’ve got the grilling ranges, deep fryers, baking ovens, and even specialized appliances like steamers to speed up the cooking process.

Again, the appliances you get depend on your restaurant cuisine. When you set them all up though, arrange them near the food preparation zone for workflow efficiency and away from the cold storage area for energy efficiency. As the final stage for plating dishes, the cooking zone should also brush right up against the counter where servers pick up orders.

 

Dishwashing zone

Last but not least, the zone where all the dirty but necessary work is done. You never want to be in a situation where you run out of clean dishes during a rush. Avoiding that means streamlining the dishwashing process through appropriate equipment like triple-basin sinks and commercial dishwasher machines designed for speedy spotless dishes.

Even the location of the dishwashing zone counts! By setting it right by the door between the kitchen and the dining area, you minimize the travel time of dirty dishes.

 

Basically, it all comes down to choosing the right equipment and layout to maximize your kitchen staff’s productivity as well as their comfort during the long hours in the kitchen.