How strategically does your company strive to welcome clients and guests

Regardless of size and location, it should be in the interest of every business that the reception space and welcome area - as the company face - communicates friendly hospitality, positive spirit and invites to dialogue.

Modern office design aims to accentuate your company's vision, branding and personality through the choices of interiors of the workspace and environment and also of your reception and lounge.

Every client and guest entering your company front door gets a first impression of the business from the lobby layout, structure, and overall design. A harmonious welcome from an orderly reception area will influence the visitor with a definite sense of identity.

Whether your business prioritizes innovation, creativity, tradition, elegance or any other skills, it is essential to reflect the company's overall messages immediately in the design of the reception area already.

Company DNA

"The reception area addresses the first impression of your company's profile. Signals emitted here can influence the customer's awareness of company history, products, CSR policy, open-mindedness and communication skills.

As a company, you have all opportunities to create interest and draw your clients´ attention in the welcome space - even if initially they will only reach the reception," interior designer and architect Anne Reinholdt, Anne Reinholdt Design, states.

Company slogan We Create Balance adorns the desk of the reception area, which interior designer Anne Reinholdt and Kinnarps arranged for the Danish advisory and accounting company Beierholm.

As an experienced interior designer, Anne Reinholdt is a specialist in getting into the customer needs and trying to find the company DNA. Before Anne Reinholdt opened her consulting firm last year, she worked for many years with Europe's largest manufacturer of office furniture Kinnarps.

"Is there anything in the company DNA that inspires me in the design, choice of materials, transparency and movement patterns? Should the perhaps long-standing story of the firm be told because it testifies to strength, loyalty, and development, or is it instead of the open and communicative workflow of the young business that must in focus?

Does the company - for security and confidential reasons - aim to slow down their clients at the reception desk, or does the firm, on the contrary, want to lead guests further into the spaces on their own? The latter will have an impact on whether or not there is a need for a staff-serviced counter," Anne Reinholdt explains.

Homely-touch

A large number of housing programs that have spread over global TV channels these years have contributed to increasing interest in housing, interior design, and architecture, which has also influenced the designs of workplaces..

"In recent years, we have seen obvious tendencies to soften the reception and arrival area with domestic lounge furniture, just as the entire workplace has achieved an overall homely-touch," Anne Reinholdt says.

"The signals communicated by the reception space can help influence customers´ awareness of the company history, products, CSR policy, open-mindedness, etc.," interior designer Anne Reinholdt explains.

"Digitization and the breakthrough of activity-based workplaces with its alternative designs and various functions of the workday has facilitated the transition. The fact that work and leisure are merging also reflects in the design of the reception and lobby areas, which will often signal warmth, communication, transparency, and open-mindedness."

Anne Reinholdt underlines that, as a starting point, it is crucial to find out and define how much importance the architecture has or must have for the company profile, and to what extent the interior design must base on the architecture.

Essential messages

"As a professional architect, I always want to take into account the given locations. But of course, there are differences between whether it is a small firm that leases their office spaces among other companies in a large office property, or an established company, which moves into a newly built architect designed and strategically located domicile.

Also, the company may have been housed in the same old half-timbered building since its inception centuries ago, leading me to a completely different starting point.

First of all, the most important thing to remember is - when it comes to designing decorating the company's reception and welcome area - that space is and remains as the face of the company. It is precisely here that you have all opportunities to show and flash your company DNA and signal your strategically essential messages," Anne Reinholdt emphasizes. 

Read more:
Annereinholdt.design: Architecture & design between holistic and detailOfficesnapshots.com: Reception/waiting area
Pinterest.dk: Office reception areas