In many offices, the brand lives in one place: the logo wall behind reception. Past that wall, the workplace could belong to almost any company. The desks, meeting rooms and pantry are planned well enough, but nothing in them says whose office this is.
This week Office Snapshots published three new workplaces that take a different route. None of them relies on the logo to do the work. Each one starts from an idea about the company and turns it into something people experience as they move through the floor.
Three offices, three sources of identity
A symbol that becomes a route. For Accenture's new office in Cairo, Two Emms Design Studio worked with CO-55 on about 2,000 square metres of workstations, collaborative areas, meeting rooms and private offices. The concept comes from Accenture's forward-facing arrow. Instead of repeating it as a graphic, the designers turned it into directional lines, dynamic geometry and transitions that guide movement and connect people.
A condition that becomes a framework. CYERA's offices in Tel Aviv, designed by EN Design Studio, cover more than 100,000 square feet. CYERA is a fast-growing cybersecurity company, so the brief was about change: how to keep a clear identity while new people and new ways of working keep arriving. The answer was a workplace that does not fix the identity in place but gives it a framework to develop in, where consistent elements sit beside room for variety.
A history that becomes atmosphere. For the law firm Remfry & Sagar in Gurugram, Supersight designed 25,000 square feet around the firm's 200-year legacy. Their working principle was "to derive the design from the past and rethink for the future": an airy, modern interior that still carries a sense of permanence.
What the three have in common
The sources are different: a symbol, a business condition and a history. The method is the same. Each team found one idea that is true about the company and asked how that idea would behave in space.
That question matters more than any material choice. A brand idea can shape:
- Movement: where people enter, which routes are obvious and where they slow down
- Gathering: how much of the floor is shared, and how open those spaces are
- Privacy: where focused work and confidential conversations happen
- Display: what the company chooses to show visitors, and what it keeps for the team
Colours, materials and lighting come after these decisions. When they come first, the result is usually a branded finish applied to a generic plan.
An office is a different kind of brand space
Retail and hospitality spaces are designed for customers who stay for minutes or an hour. An office is used by the same people for eight hours a day, every working day. That changes the brief in three ways.
It has to be comfortable before it is expressive. A strong colour or an unusual form that looks striking in photographs can become tiring by the third month. Identity in a workplace tends to work better in proportion, light and sequence than in loud surfaces.
It has to survive growth. CYERA's brief is common in Vietnam too. Companies that are hiring often need more desks within a year or two, and a layout that only works at today's headcount will be compromised quickly. Decide early which elements are fixed and which can absorb change.
It has to work inside someone else's building. Most offices here are on leased floors, with landlord rules on ceilings, facades, signage and services. A good concept accepts those limits and puts its effort where the company has control.
Five questions before you brief an office designer
- What is the one idea about your company that should be felt in the space? It might be a symbol, a way of working, a history or an ambition. If you cannot say it in a sentence, the design will not say it either.
- Who is the space mainly for? Staff, clients, candidates and partners each need something different. Rank them.
- What should a visitor see in the first 30 seconds, and what should stay private?
- How many people will this office hold in two years, and what changes if that number doubles?
- Which parts of the floor can you change under your lease, and which belong to the building?
Answering these before the first concept meeting saves rounds of revision later, because the designer is working from your company rather than from a mood board.
Where this connects with brand systems
The same thinking applies whether you have one office or a network of branches. We have written about how a space guideline separates fixed, flexible and local elements, and about why each location should be consistent, not identical. A headquarters is often where that system is first tested.
You can see this approach in our own workplace projects. For Ogilvy, the reception became a visual anchor through angular forms, a red accent and continuous ceiling lines. For Restaff, the brief was about clear planning and connected work zones, softened with warm timber and glazed boundaries.
At Module K, we work beyond spaces, building brand systems. If you are planning a new office or rethinking an existing one, talk to us about the idea your workplace should carry.
