How to Use Wall Murals to Transform Your Office’s Appearance

JANUARY 3, 2019| SpeedPro

Too many offices look the same. Filled with sterile white or gray walls and conventional beige hallways, many office complexes don’t stand out. However, your company’s brand and culture are unique — so why not showcase your individuality through your office’s design?

Wall murals are a multifunctional and practical way to upgrade the look of your office instantly. With a chic mural, you can simultaneously improve your office culture and cement your brand identity. The trick is determining what location, colors and style go the best with your workplace.

Benefits of Wall Murals

Well-designed wall murals can revitalize an office space. However, many business owners choose a fresh coat of paint or new computer chairs before they consider a mural because they can seem much more intimidating than other office upgrades. However, murals come with a long list of benefits, including the following:

• Fast: While repainting can take days of work, you can install many printed wall murals in a few minutes, giving your office a new ambiance in no time.
• Removable: If you’re renting an office, you’re probably reluctant to try any long-term changes. However, printed wall murals are often removable, which means you can enjoy a fresh look without worrying about damaging your walls.
• Customizable: With a printed mural, you aren’t stuck with a few basic patterns or styles — you can choose from thousands of images or even use your own design. This means you can customize your mural to suit the exact brand and tone of your company.
• Unique: Many offices are painted the same few colors, ranging from standard beige to calming blues. However, when you choose a mural, you can select a design that is unique to your business. With endless options to choose from, you can easily find a one-of-a-kind design to fit the tone of your business.
• Flexible: Unlike paint, you can install a mural on many different surfaces, including walls, cubicles and windows. This gives you maximum flexibility when upgrading your office.

If you feel like the atmosphere or energy of your office needs a change, consider installing a striking wall mural. Efficient and practical, murals are a smart design choice that will quickly transform the look of your space.

Where to Place Wall Murals

Before you can choose your mural, you must decide where to place it. The location of a mural will affect its impact, influencing all other design choices, like color and style.

When you’re deciding where to place your mural, think about its purpose — what do you want the mural to achieve? Below, we’ve grouped four ways you can use a mural to help you narrow down your placement options:

• Divide Open Space: One effective use of a wall mural is dividing empty space. Some workspaces are located in open areas, like renovated warehouses. Dividing such an expansive space can be difficult — instead of installing walls or other physical barriers, try using colorful murals to create different areas within your workspace. For example, you could line one side of the space with a long, engaging mural to indicate where break areas are located.
• Provide Style and Contrast: If your office includes large open areas like lobbies or workspaces, installing a mural can help make the space visually interesting and engaging. This is especially effective if your office has a large empty wall — a well-designed mural can transform any wall into a beautiful focal point.
• Direct Foot Traffic: A logo-bearing mural behind the front desk can help direct guests when they enter your building. Similarly, try installing murals in high-traffic rooms like conference rooms — this will make the room stand apart, and it will help visitors easily locate the important areas of your office.
• Enhance Focus or Creativity: If you want to generate a specific mood or atmosphere, try placing murals in the main work areas of your office. For example, to encourage accuracy and productivity among your employees, try installing a mural with blue-based colors near their workstations. The mural will not only add to the style of your office, but it will increase your staff’s ability to focus.

Once you have decided where you want to place your mural, you can begin choosing colors.

The Effects of Color

Color has the power to transform an environment. Through color psychology, researchers have studied how different hues affect people’s emotions, motivations and behaviors. Colors influence our reaction to a setting, and while each person will respond differently, researchers have noticed certain trends that correlate across time and place. Here are three of them.

1. Warm Colors

Warm colors are the tones with more yellow and red in them than blue. They appear closer to the eye than cool colors, which makes them stand out in any setting. The colors of the sun and fire, warm colors are often linked to optimism, boldness and action.

Keep in mind that everyone will respond differently to certain colors based on their life experiences. For example, while many people associate orange with enthusiasm and excitement, others may connect the color with negative emotions and experiences. However, some reactions occur more frequently than others — below, we’ve listed each color with its most common associations:

• Yellow: Most often, yellow is associated with optimism, excitement and high amounts of energy. It is an excellent choice for settings that need a boost of positivity or innovation.
• Red: Red is connected to strength, power and activity, making it a popular choice for workspaces that deal with physical work. The color can also evoke a sense of comfort and love when used sparingly.
• Orange: Filled with enthusiasm and warmth, orange is an exciting color that draws attention.
• Pink: Associated with love, kindness and peace, pink is a calming shade that can temporarily reduce stress, even among prison inmates.

In murals, warm colors are good for grabbing and keeping attention. Because they advance toward the eye, warm colors can make large spaces seem smaller or more intimate. Warm colors can also generate a feeling of comfort and enthusiasm. However, if you use them too much, red and yellow-based shades can quickly become overwhelming.

2. Cool Colors

Compared to warm colors, cool tones are typically calming, relaxing and intellectual. Unlike warm hues, cool tones recede from the eye, and they tend to make environments seem larger and more open. Associated with nature and peace, cool colors are a popular choice for office settings.

• Blue: The world’s favorite color, blue is associated with peace, creativity and focus. It is an intellectual color as well as a soothing one, making it a perfect color choice if your staff deals with high amounts of stress.
• Green: Connected to rest, vitality and relaxation, green encourages concentration and health. Green is a refreshing color, and it goes perfectly with a nature-based mural.
• Purple: Associated with sophistication and creativity, purple is a hue that connotes prosperity and respect.
• Brown: Depending on whether it is mixed with more reds or more blues, brown is either a cool color or a warm color. Regardless of tone, brown is typically associated with stability, reliability and security.

When used in murals, cool colors encourage a relaxed and focused atmosphere. This can make them an excellent choice for workstations or other areas that emphasize individual work. However, try not to create a blue-saturated environment — if cool tones dominate a workspace, they could stifle creativity.

3. Neutral Colors

Versatile and nondescript, neutrals are the types of color we can’t describe with a definite temperature — we can’t categorize black, white and gray as types of other colors like red, blue or yellow, and we can’t make them by mixing other colors.

Some “neutral colors” aren’t true neutrals but are commonly grouped under the neutral category. For example, beige is a mixture of brown, yellow and white, but it typically functions as a neutral in decor and aesthetics.

Below are some of the most popular neutrals you can use in your office murals:

• Black: A strong and elegant neutral, people commonly associate black with intelligence, authority and mystery. Too much black can lead to an intimidating atmosphere, however. To avoid overwhelming an environment with black, make sure to include lighter colors in your design, as well.
• White: Connected to cleanliness and innocence, white is a popular minimalist color. However, white can also create a seemingly sterile atmosphere if it dominates a space. If you use white in your mural, make sure to break it up with more colorful tones.
• Gray: Practical and formal, gray is an unemotional neutral that pairs well with virtually any color scheme. While it can look dingy if used too much, gray can also be elegant when incorporated sparingly into a mural design.
• Beige: Beige conveys relaxation and peace, and it is considered a safe neutral for many settings. However, while beige is a popular neutral color, it is also conventional — too much beige can stifle creativity.

Neutrals are important colors with powerful connotations. However, they are often overused — work with a designer to find the perfect balance of colors for your mural.

Colors That Enhance Productivity

Many offices are places of focused work, settings where accuracy and attention to detail are essential. To encourage focus in your office space, try incorporating some of these colors into your wall mural.

• Blue: An intellectual color, blue enhances efficiency, logic and communication in an office setting. Blue-based colors are also calming — using blue in your wall mural will create an atmosphere of both focus and peace in your office. If you want to encourage accuracy and communication, blue-derived tones are an excellent choice. Lighter shades of blue in particular are thought to stimulate productivity.
• Green: Green is the color of harmony, and we often connect it with health, restoration and nature. It is also the perfect choice for an office with employees who usually works long hours — green is the easiest color for the eye to focus on, which means it puts less strain on our vision over time.

You don’t have to install a completely blue mural to enhance productivity. Instead, try using blue or green as a primary color in the design.

Colors That Enhance Creativity

Offices are places of collaboration and inspiration. To encourage creativity among your staff, try implementing these colors in your wall mural:

• Yellow: Yellow is a bright, emotional color, connected to a range of positive effects including happiness, friendliness and creativity. Incorporate some yellow-based tones into your mural to encourage joy and innovation among your employees, but be careful not to overdo it — while yellow is motivating and stimulating in manageable levels, too much of the color can overwhelm a space.
• Orange: Like yellow, orange is also linked to cheerfulness and creativity. A bright, fun color, orange can help spark ideas when used in office design. Orange is a less-bright alternative to yellow, and it functions well alongside cooler colors like green and blue.

While cool colors are linked to intellectual responses, warm colors are connected to emotion. Incorporate yellow or orange into your mural to give your office a boost of creativity.

The Different Styles of Wall Murals

When you choose a wall mural, you must decide what style of mural best fits your office. Ultimately, there is no wrong choice — the look of your mural should reflect the unique tone of your company, and any style could work.

Below are three common types of murals — abstract, stylized and photo-based.

1. Abstract Murals

Abstract designs are patterns of color, shape and line without a distinct subject matter. Urban and chic, abstract murals can bring a contemporary edge to your office.

With abstract murals, you can focus directly on the color and flow of your mural. While photo-based images contain different tones, textures, shapes and lines, abstract murals are often comparatively simple — many abstract designs feature only a few prominent colors in a variety of shapes. This allows you to take full advantage of color theory and set a specific tone for your office.

2. Stylized Murals

A blend of abstract and photo-realistic designs, stylized murals take familiar scenes or items and make them more colorful or simple.

As an example, many photo-realistic murals include scenes from nature. For a stylized take on a nature scene, you could create a mural with large stylized leaves floating across the wall — the leaves could have streamlined shapes and vivid colors, merging abstraction and realism.

Because stylized murals often feature bright colors, you can still use color theory as you design or select your mural. If you like the look of a mountain vista but prefer warm colors, you could design a stylized take on a mountain range featuring sunset-hues like reds, oranges and golds.

3. Photo-Based Murals

Photo-based murals are striking and attention-grabbing, and for good reason. With photo-realistic murals, you can transport your staff to another place.

Do you love the tranquility of green, mossy woods or the breathtaking views from the Alps? Transform a photograph of a natural setting into a wall mural. Especially when used in rooms or smaller spaces, photo-based murals can make your employees feel as though they are almost in another place. This can be a powerful way to set the tone of your office. Use the beauty of an urban cityscape to encourage productivity, or let the natural tranquility of a stream or coast bring a peaceful setting to a conference room.

Whatever image you decide, consider the color palette of the photo — is it filled with industrial neutrals, soothing cool colors or energizing warm tones? Although the setting of the image is important, keeping color in mind can help you find a picture that suits the mood of your office.

Transform Your Office Today

Transform your office from forgettable to cutting-edge — a well-designed wall mural can upgrade any office from standard to extraordinary. With the right placement, colors and style, a mural can quickly and efficiently enhance the atmosphere of your workspace.

Trust your wall mural to a company that emphasizes the quality of its service as much as its products. SpeedPro has a nationwide network of professional imaging studios ready to partner with you on your next project, and our team of experts is available to help you plan a mural that will set your office apart from the rest.

Find a studio near you and begin transforming your office today.