Gray Walls, Dead Dreams, and The Rise of Super Graphics

I remember my first job following my MFA in design. After five grueling years of sleep deprivation, exploded eyeball capillaries, and constant neck cramps — it was a welcome break.

The company was your typical tech giant, with headquarters in a remote SF-adjacent tech village, with restaurants, cafes, a pond, and even a swimming pool no one ever used. It was more money than I had ever seen on any of my paychecks to date, and so I sold out in under 25 seconds, abandoning dreams of fancy New York design studios or becoming a design hero in a non-profit sector.

Instead, I stuffed my dreams into a small gray cubicle with cold silver overhead lights, weird green/tan wall paint, and even weirder grayer carpets. Nothing could remedy the boring sameness and the skull-numbing apathy that followed in the next 3 years of my “design career". I dutifully spat out brand brochures and digital campaigns like a coin-operated doll.

The work did feel interesting at first, and I don’t regret all of the lessons from my wonderful and very German DD, or my over-caffeinated hipster colleagues with their manual coffee grinders and distressed concert T-shirts (of bands they couldn’t have possibly seen live unless they were toddlers.)

What I could not get past, though, was the lack of light, the drab colors, and ZERO mental stimulation at a workplace that was meant to inspire through technological speed and innovation.

Nothing could kill your joy faster than staring at a gray wall.

It is when I realized that the work environment affects everyone’s mental, and by extension, physical well-being, and if done poorly, can contribute to boredom, lack of creative stimulation, and a mental acuity of a sloth.

In the extreme, it leads to getting used to the mundane and even embracing it, and even ALL-color-blindness.

Bigger and Better

I was fortunate to drag myself out of the cubicle, and into a very hip design studio that specialized not only in creating workplace magic, but took every design decision seriously.

Working alongside architects and interior designers, I realized that brand, as I had known it, was just a small slice of a larger pie.

I learned how to alter real physical space, and at first, everything looked and felt enormous. A red circle on a printed elevation was only 3 inches tall, but in real scale, about 8 feet high.

The impact of each graphic felt immense, and every decision seemed to have very big consequences, size-wise at least. With time and experience, I learned to control the never-fading enthusiasm for grandeur, yet still have a special affinity for super graphics—guess I like feeling small in a space marked by an imposing red circle.

I have come to a realization that branded spaces allow the visitor a visceral physical experience on a scale that a logo or packaging could never accomplish. A brand can tell a more impactful story when it reaches you through all of the senses: tactile installations, harmonious colors, exciting typography, or meandering floor graphics. Environmental graphics are a lexicon in a designer’s pocket with which they can evoke a meaning, build suspense, or playfully engage the viewer.

A skilled experiential designer thinks of spatial design as a well-written play, with parts of dialogue intersected by moments of silence. Similarly, some graphics serve as jolting moments designed to wake up the audience, while others provide calm and respite or promote a state of relaxed attentiveness. The overall narrative of this design theater remains constant, but the tone changes, yet it never confuses or offends the viewer.

What This Means for a Brand

Brands go to great lengths to connect with their people. They do it on a huge spectrum, from creating goofy, fantastical, yet relatable characters to building narratives steeped in “telling it like it is” realism.

Whatever the voice and whatever the flavor of the story—building that connection (or true loyalty) creates a meaningful foundation that allows a brand to not only sell a product, but to create a soapbox. This platform equips them with the power to influence habits, lifestyles, and even values (and become ingrained into our culture). Agile brands reflect the Zeitgeist, out of touch brands cling to the past. A good example of the former are tampon ads that try to move the needle around women’s shame about their natural body functions.

Experiential design is one of the most powerful ways brands take up space in the world (outside of social media and TV), by creating experiences and environments in which the audience can really “feel” the brand with all their senses.

The impact of these branded environments is often exponentially larger than an interaction with a product. Walking into the Guinness Storehouse in Ireland and spending hours in interactive rooms, in a part fun-house, part gallery setting, creates a memory of a unique physicality of the brand—an extension of their personal feelings of loyalty. Our senses are overwhelmed, our interest is piqued by whimsical installations, and backlit historical data and colorful IG moments allow us a backdrop for our own storytelling.

What This Means for the Employees

There is a reason why workplace design is still so popular, even as we fully emerge from post-pandemic isolation, which felt more like a straightjacket than a safe cocoon.

Most of us want to return to some of the normalcy and crave the social aspects of the office culture, and so offices may scale down or become more temporary, but will remain in use.

An engaged employee will always be more productive, and so a happy workspace that activates and stimulates creativity and helps productivity is a no-brainer. It is an obvious decision by many companies to upgrade the workplaces and equip them with spaces to collaborate, hubs for leisure time and relaxation, or areas for intense and focused work.

Color and pattern, and especially biophilia, may seem like simplistic solutions at first. When you affect the employees psychologically by enhancing their mood and contributing to their happiness, it directly leads to employee retention and ultimately helps the bottom line. It's simple math.

Wayfinding and UI/UX

Wayfinding is a tool used in directing people through a space. Having created these systems for large brands, it is clear to me that well-organized signage supports users’ ability to navigate through spaces with greater efficiency, confidence, and clarity of purpose. The value of wayfinding systems to the company is immense; it prevents confusion and bottlenecks. It's a part of productivity culture.

A Bigger Picture

Our depleting environment, global warming, and the fast pace of city living make connecting with nature a necessity if we are to keep our sanity. Corporate employees work on average 2,080 hours per year but this data fluctuates. Judging from conversations with my peers, they are more tired and stretched than in the past, so they need access to comfortable and revitalizing environments to maintain good mood and productivity.

Since our recent generations have been raised attached to their computers, we are used to seamless navigation, easy communication, and great speed. We want to move with equal efficiency in real life as we do in virtual environments. We don’t want to overthink our actions, and so the environment has to support this evolved cognitive behavior if we are to avoid daily frustrations.

As someone who is passionate about making our world not only beautiful, but inclusive, and focused on positive human experiences, I am fully invested in giving you the necessary tools to create more impact on your employees, your brand, and your business.

If you love branded spaces and believe in the power of transforming offices into ecosystems where people thrive and succeed, reach out and let’s chat about future collaboration.