- Marina Shektman
Designing Brand Identity Into The Workspace
Updated: Feb 22, 2019
January 16 2019 | Marina Shektman
When establishing a brand, it's not only important to create a website, ads, logos, but also a physical space that reflects the company's culture and beliefs. A thoughtfully branded workspace achieves several goals. It encourages employees to support corporate objectives, it attracts prospective talent and demonstrates brand consistency to visitors and clients. Here is a case study of Neurala, Boston Seaport, MA that shows a thought process behind some interior design decisions.
Neurala is an award winning company, specializing in artificial intelligence. The company develops software used in robots, self driving cars, drones, toys and intelligent devices that adapt to perform useful tasks www.neurala.com
When beginning a project, the first step is discovery and information gathering. Research is a critical step in the creative process because it helps designers and architects understand the core values of the company, which leads to conceptualization of an effective design. In meetings with Neurala's decision makers, strategies were developed to maximize their brand expression in the space. As part of the plan, it was decided to use images of brains, robots, scientific formulas, company's patents and quotes by famous scientists throughout. As you enter Neurala's space, you find yourself in a dimmed lounge area with a mural of a glowing brain on the wall facing the entrance. The tiny lights in the brain image were painstakingly installed through the wall using fiberoptic cables connected to the light source in the ceiling plenum. The idea behind the entrance lounge was to put a visitor in a creative and mysterious mood and ignite curiosity about the company right from the get go.
Design of the office space presented a tough challenge. The space was dark with large unsightly concrete pillars throughout. Existing tall and dark cubicles contributed to the low light levels. To improve that, we decided on the white color scheme for walls and furniture that reflected more light into the space and gave it an airy appearance. Here is what it looked like before:
To enliven the workspace, Neurala's green and blue colors were used as accents. The blue neon light strip illuminated custom murals of scientific formulas, graphs and famous quotes on every column.
To bring nature into the artificially lit space, live moss installations were introduced. Room names were inspired by references to AI fictional movie characters
The collaborative lounge area is separated by a Lego partition from a workstation. Neurala's accent colors are used in blue chair upholstery and green accent wall.
Custom mural on the column was created by Virginia at Artful Interior Finishing, the graphics emphasize the Neurala brand.
The neon blue chairs accent the otherwise neutral conference room.
It was important for us as designers to tell the story of Neurala's culture and brand. It was crucial that the story aligned with what the company represented.
Note: this project would not be possible without the helpful hands of our partners and staff: The M1 Project, Artful Interior Finishing, Minakshi Rothawan, graphic designer Luca Agea, wonderful people at Neurala and many others
Tags: hi-tech design interiors, commercial branding, interior design, office design, lighting in office space, workspace furniture, branding in interior design, murals in office interiors, graphics in commercial space, office design color scheme, interior design Boston, New England office design, commercial interiors Boston