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How to Choose Art for your Office: A 5 Step Guide

Posted by Meelimari Arro on 10th September 2015

Whether you want to have art to fill white walls, impress clients or motivate employees, choosing office wall art can be difficult. Here is our guide for decorating office with wall Art.

BRANDING

What do you want your clients to think when they enter your office? Is your office Wall Art conveying your brand, character and culture or does it appear as just another faceless corporation? 
 
It is easy to forget the importance of corporate decor for leaving a good first impression. Use brand colours or commission artwork that incorporates your brand values.
 
I love how finance companies, that are often perceived as conservative, choose colourful/poppy or crazy artwork that conveys their brand and culture. Shard Capital chose sculptures for their office in the Walkie Talkie building that you wouldn't normally expect to find in a traditional financial services firm. 
 

Emiliano Donaggio at Shard Capital

 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Art is a good way to start small talk: the story about acquiring art or what the art means for the company can be a nice introduction to any meeting and a good talking point because everyone loves stories.
 
For example, JP Morgan has artwork from every country they operate in and LinkedIn uses local artists in its offices! Maps and cityscapes are also very popular with Rise Art's corporate clients. You could have Laura Jordan's detailed cityscapes prints from the cities you have offices in: London, New York and Paris?
 

Laura Jordan, creates wonderfully rich large-scale images of Metropolitan existence from the World's great cities!

 

budget 

If you want to impress clients but can't afford to spend much on artwork, have more expensive work in areas that are more visible–the lobby or meeting room. Renting is a good way to have expensive art for the fraction of the cost. If you can't afford to invest £15k for a painting at once, you can rent it for £800 per month. 

 

Rent Monoprint 1 by Bruce McLean for a fraction of the sale price!

 

Bruce McLean at Avenue 

 

INCLUDE YOUR EMPLOYEES

A study from Exeter University shows that when employees are involved in the decoration of their surroundings, the productivity increased by 30%. Art is subjective and not everyone will always be happy with the choice but you can overcome this by having less offensive and abstract works in the common rooms and let employees choose works for their workspace that fit the corporate decor and identity. Bigger companies can also use our voting tool or form an art committee that will make the decision.

 

Mix it Up

If you are the kind of person who gets bored easily, you could vary the art on the walls every year. Instead of buying the artwork, Rise Art Corporate Services allows companies to rent and rotate the art every 6-12 months to keep things fresh. This is especially useful for companies whose clients visit often as they will be impressed by different art from time to time. Not having to commit long-term also makes the difficult decision of choosing art easier, in case your boss or colleagues don't like it. Finally, renting is tax efficient and can be listed as an expense in accounting.

 

 Victoria Horkan at IRESS

Speak to an Advisor 

Most Art Providers offer a free Art consultation before you need to commit to anything so don’t be shy and ask Corporate Art Consultants for advice. Click here to download Rise Art’s catalogue and get a free consultation.
 
Looking for inspiration? See our collections for different companies here.
 
Interior designer? Look here for information about our Trade program.