As more and more offices take their day to day business online, the importance of having a space to suit your working needs is more important now than ever before.
Check out some of our office design tips below.
1. COLOUR
It's no surprise that colour is the first on our list!
The paint colour you choose for your workspace not only provides the opportunity to show a little personality during video calls, but also to create an environment that you can do you in. Whether you need a powerful, invigorating colour to fire you up while you’re doing your finances, or a calm, soothing colour to add a little Zen to your working day, Digby has a colour perfect for you.
CLEAN & VERSATILE
Whites, grey and greige can create a sense of serenity and simplicity to help you say goodbye to the distractions of your surroundings!
Shades like the ones above can help promote focus- which is especially important if your office space isn’t completely separated from the rest of your home.
A more neutral backdrop also offers the opportunity to bring in pops of colour as you see fit. Plants, artwork or colourful office accent items are easy to add and adjust to keeping your office space feeling focused on you.
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These shades are all about the concept of versatility, which is so important to the modern day office worker as working conditions and requirements for a home office can change from day to day.
BE BOLD
If you're interested in experimenting with bold colour in your home but don’t want to commit to a bright red kitchen, the office is a great place to cut your teeth. It’s a common assumption that darker colours make a space feel smaller, but this isn’t always the case. While lighter colours do reflect more light, darker shades can blur the edges of a room making them less clearly marked and create a feeling of a larger space.
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2. ROLL WITH IT
If you want to keep the versatility rolling beyond the walls, consider a desk on wheels (or adding casters to your existing one). This is a great play if you’re feeling stagnant in your current setup. A rolling desk is also a great move for those lucky enough to have lots of natural light in their space, keeping you one step ahead of the glare created by the sun as it moves throughout the day. Changing location (even within your own home) can also help with creativity and clarity.
3. ORGANIZED SHELVING
We love open shelving in offices as a design element, but we also love the fact that it tends to keep us accountable to stay organized. It’s much easier to shove a file in a drawer and forget about, but open shelves train our brains to organize as we go, which ends up saving us time searching for documents in the long run. By utilizing open shelves you can also showoff the lovely colour of your walls, or paint the back of your shelves with a bold accent colour to create visual interest in your space.
If you like the idea of open shelves but know yourself well enough to believe you’ll stay organized 24/7, consider installing drapes or placing a room divider in front of them. Apart from hiding a little bit of healthy mess, this can help separate your living space and your working space, making it easier to prioritize a healthy work-life balance.
4. INVEST IN COMFORT
The most important part of designing your home office is creating a space that you are comfortable in. You’re likely going to spend hours in this space, and you want it to reflect your personality while also being a space where you can be as productive as possible. The chair you sit on is the piece of furniture that will likely have the most noticeable effect on yourself and your work, so it’s important to find one that’s just right for you.
Focus on the key principle of ergonomics when choosing your chair- design your workspace to fit you, don’t adjust yourself (and your work habits) to fit into your workspace. Most people think of bulky black chairs when they think of office chairs, but there are many options that are both stylish and adjustable to your individual needs and body types.
5. CONNECT WITH NATURE
Plants are a great option for colourful accents on a neutral backdrop. A little greenery acts as way more than a pretty face. House plants provide a calming vibe in a space and have been shown to decrease stress, increase productivity, boost creativity and make us feel a little more connected to nature. It might be time to say hello to your new house-plant co-worker!
6. LIGHTING
Proper lighting is crucial to your home office design- it can either energize or suck the motivation right out of you, in addition to putting strain on your eyes if it's too dim. Not everyone has the luxury of floor to ceiling windows gracing their home office, so luckily there’s lots of options to create a lighting scheme that will encourage you to do your best work.
It’s best to go indirect with the lights that you’ll be working under, and add lamps with shades to diffuse the glare of the bulb, regardless of if you already have a main ceiling light or not. This will avoid creating too many hard shadows and dark spots in your space.
It’s also important to consider that a light behind you when you’re working at a computer will create a glare on your screen, making it harder to read and likely annoying the heck out of you. This positioning issue also extends to whether you’re a righty or a lefty, as a light coming from the same side as the hand you usually write with will create shadows on your paper while you write.
These design ideas will help you create a home office space that’s ready for anything you- or the world- throws at it. Looking for more ways you can reinvent your home? Check these 5 DIY paint projects that will make you a little more excited about staying home all winter.
About Us
Digby Paints is Canada's first online paint store. Skip the trip to the hardware store and shop Digby Paints’ premium paint and curated colour palette online. Consider your colour options from the comfort of your couch with our hassle-free colour cards. We’ll ship everything you need (including supplies!) right to your door.