One study revealed that bad brand aesthetics caused 52% of consumers not to buy from a company.  (Venngage)  There is far too much competition in today’s world to let bad aesthetics be the reason that someone doesn’t choose you.  If you are excellent at what you do, that level of excellence should be communicated in every area – including the visual.

So, how do you design for who you are as a business?  Camilla & Co.’s strategy is to first uncover your business’ personality, then bring that to life in a way that best represents the values and goals of your business.  Here are a few things to consider:

What do you want people to know about you?  You absolutely communicate things about who you are as business through your environment.  People are going to form impressions about you through your environment whether it is intentionally designed or not, and whether you want them to or not.  Therefore, it is important to pay attention to and evaluate what message your environment is sending.  Is it orderly or chaotic? Quiet or loud? Bright or dim? What do you want to be known and remembered for?  Doing a discovery of your business personality will help to guide you on what this should look like for you. See What is a Brand to learn more.

How do you want someone to feel when they interact with your business? This should be directly tied to your business goals.  The design of your space can be powerful enough to influence people toward or away from using your services or purchasing your product! In addition to the way you treat your customers, your business design can evoke various feelings in people.  How does an environment that is quiet, loud, orderly, bright, dim, warm, or cool make people feel? None of these are necessarily right or wrong, it all depends on who you are as a business and what your goals are.  If you own a fitness center where you want people to feel energized and empowered, then bright, loud and bold may be good choices for your space.

Medical facilities have been progressing over the years in the design of their clinics and hospitals, to help patients feel more comfortable and to increase feelings of well-being.  There are even studies that show how healing can be accelerated in patients in a less-sterile and more calming and nature-focused environment.  Color, lighting, wall art, window size and placement, fabric choices, and more, can all contribute to the way that someone feels in any given space.

Things to avoid: Implementing personal styles into your business environment is usually not ideal.  Unless your personal brand is exactly the same as your business’ brand/personality, implementing your or anyone else’s personal taste, most likely isn’t going to further your brand.  Often times with small businesses, an owner, spouse, or maybe an employee with a “nack” for such things ends up selecting the color palette, furnishings, etc., and whether intended or not, the result can end up looking like a living room, and often reflects that individual’s style and goals, rather than the business’ goals.

Another thing to look out for is simply not being intentional enough about your design.  Sometimes businesses move into a space and put some paint on the wall because it needs to be painted, furnish it because it needs to be furnished, and put in place the items that they need in order to run their business.  It is easy to do this because it’s what needs to be done in order to get your business up and running as soon as possible, yet the consequence of not being intentional enough about how your space is going to make people feel can result in an incohesive look, and one that could hinder your reputation and not promote positive buying decisions.

A great way to further your business goals and avoid pitfalls is to design for who you are as a business.  At Camilla & Co., we design with your business goals in mind.  We do a business personality discovery, and use that as the foundation for your design.  This will strengthen your business and your brand!