Office Graphics

Most of us encounter signs and graphics nearly everywhere we go, so it can be easy to take for granted the impact these graphics can have. The effect is especially profound when it comes to office spaces, places where graphics can play many essential roles. High-quality office graphics can transform an office environment and turn a blank, bland building into a hotbed of information and inspiration. With custom graphics from SpeedPro, you can inspire your employees, strengthen your branding and impress your clients.

Types of Office Graphics

To better understand the role signs and graphics play, or should play, in an office, let’s divide these graphics into five main types:

1. Outdoor signs
2. Reception signs
3. Directional signs
4. Environmental graphics
5. Safety signs

Together, these signage types can form a comprehensive suite of graphics that enhances the form and functionality of your office.

1. Outdoor Office Signs

Outdoor signage is a crucial aspect of your office’s graphics since it’s how you identify your facility. Outdoor signage should be large, bold, easy to read and attention-grabbing. Whether you rent a space in a strip mall or own the building, an eye-catching sign can raise awareness of your business in the community and can instill pride in your branding among your employees.

• Mounted signs: For an office, one of the essential types of exterior signage is a large-format corporate sign mounted to the face of your building. These signs display your company’s name and may include graphics or other information that identifies your business. They consist of exterior-grade materials such as chloroplast, acrylic, aluminum, aluminate or vinyl.
• Posted signs: Corporate signs can also sit on an H-frame base, which can go anywhere on your company’s premises. Many businesses take advantage of both mounted and posted signs to call attention to the company’s location next to their entrance from the road and to identify their office building itself once a visitor arrives.
• Digital signs: Some companies also include digital signage outside their office buildings. These digital signs can share various messages with the public and employees. For example, they can notify readers when the office will be closed for renovation or can share news about the company’s accomplishments.
• Flags and banners: You can also use temporary outdoor signage to call attention to a unique event or milestone, such as a company anniversary or an upcoming promotion. Two excellent options to consider are outdoor flags and banners, which can effectively grab attention and stand up to the elements.

2. Office Reception Signs

Once employees, business partners or clients step into your office, reception signs should greet them. Your reception area or lobby is the heart of your building. It’s your first chance, aside from your outdoor signage, to make a positive impression on visitors. Consider what sort of message you want your business to convey to those who step into your office’s reception area.

Indoor office signs aren’t only about branding and making a memorable impression. Your reception area is where visitors expect to find the information and answers they’re looking for, and your office reception signs can help you provide that. Specifically, there are four purposes you should consider when designing reception signage for your office.

• Branding: Your branding should be prominent in your lobby. Some companies display their logo on or behind a reception desk as a focal point for the reception area. There are a variety of ways to make this logo. For an impressive, modern look, opt for contour-cut signage and add backlighting to make it pop.
• Instructions: Visitors to your office should know what to do when they first come in. They should feel welcome, rather than anxious about not knowing where to go or what to do. For example, if you expect visitors to sign in or speak to the receptionist before proceeding further into the building, you should include a sign that welcomes them and prompts them to do so.
• Directions: You may also want to add some wayfinding signage in your lobby, which we’ll discuss more in the next section. This signage can include an office directory that lists important rooms or amenities and their locations. It could also take the form of arrow signs pointing guests toward the elevators or stairs, restrooms or specific blocks of offices.
• Marketing materials: If you have set up your lobby as a waiting area for clients, you may want to include some customized literature racks where you can display brochures, portfolios or other informational literature. You want clients to feel informed and impressed by your company while they wait to meet with a salesperson or other representative.

3. Office Directional Signs

Another sign type that is critical in any office is directional signage, also called wayfinding signage. These signs serve four primary purposes in an office.

• Direct visitors: One of the reasons to have these signs is to provide directions so people can conveniently navigate your building, locating offices, conference rooms, break rooms, restrooms, stairs and other key locations. These directional signs often take the shape of arrows along with text to point the way to different areas. They can take many forms, including hanging signs, mounted wall signs and floor decals.
• Name rooms: Directional signs also label rooms and spaces in your office building. People should know when they’ve found a certain room and are in the right place. Some offices use generic signage for this purpose, using depersonalized names like “Conference Room” or “Office 2C” to label rooms. Custom signage allows you to incorporate your brand into your signage and to be more specific.
• Designate areas: Wayfinding signage also helps designate specific spots inside and outside your office building. For example, if you have a designated smoking zone, installing signage will help employees smoke in the correct place. Another example is a sign letting employees know what credentials they need to access a specific room, such as a lab or warehouse connected to your office.
• Provide information: Wayfinding signage can also display information and instructions to help employees and guests in your building. Some examples include a window graphic showing your office hours, a sign requesting employees to remain quiet in a designated workspace or a reminder to maintain safety practices.

Directional signs should be throughout your office. Employees, clients and other visitors will be able to navigate and interact with your workplace, never wondering whether they’re moving in the right direction, in the right place or following regulations. Signage helps illuminate all of this, and custom signage allows you to put your company’s stamp on these signs to reinforce your branding and personalize your workplace.

4. Environmental Office Graphics

Another sign that can enhance an office space is environmental graphics. Environmental graphics can transform an office space into a more visually engaging place. You might also hear people refer to environmental graphics as experiential design because of the way they connect employees to their environment and immerse them in your brand.

Research shows engaged employees are more productive, demonstrating the value of promoting engagement among employees. Environmental graphics are an excellent way to do this. They can even help strengthen your company culture. While some types of signage are fairly standard for an office, custom environmental graphics can set your office apart.

Environmental graphics can include imagery, text or both, but one thing that tends to characterize all environmental graphics is their size. To create an immersive experience, these graphics should be expansive. They commonly take the form of office wall graphics, floor graphics and window decals. Let’s look at some examples of how you can use environmental graphics in your office.

• Inspiring murals: Artistic murals can make a workplace more inspiring and visually engaging. This artwork, whether a photograph or graphic, should be relevant to your company. For example, a real estate agency can enhance their office space with a large map of the area they serve or photographs of local sites. A company that sells swimwear can turn their walls into beautiful beach or poolside scenes.
• Educational displays:Displays can also be educational. For example, you can cover an accent wall in a timeline of your company’s history, complete with historic photographs. Or, you could display statistics about your company, such as how many clients you’ve served, to motivate your employees. Of course, you should regularly update these displays to keep them current.
• Bold branding:All environmental graphics should reinforce your branding, but some can do so more explicitly. How many of your employees can quote the central tenets of your brand, like your mission statement or company values? By boldly displaying these aspects of your branding throughout the office, you can raise awareness among employees and create a stronger shared culture.

5. Office Safety Signage

Keeping your staff healthy should be one of your biggest priorities as an employer. While offices are usually very safe, in times of a public health crisis, you should take steps to minimize the chances a virus spreads at your workplace. You will likely need to change office policies and take new precautions to keep people as safe as possible and slow the spread of a virus. To encourage social distancing and make people aware of changes, you need signage.

If you need to keep your office safe and sanitary, consider special safety signage. You can invest in custom messages or preset templates to get your message across more clearly.

Below are some of the primary types of safety signage available to offices:

• Social distancing signs: When it comes to office safety graphics, social distancing signage is one of the most popular choices. The purpose of this signage is to give employees a visual reminder of how far they should be from one another at all times. Many businesses place these signs on floors, entrance ways and walls so employees have a consistent reminder. Generally, the signs encourage people to stay 6 feet apart, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for proper social distancing.
• Hand sanitizer stations: Encourage sanitation at the workplace by providing hand sanitizer stations around the office, especially in locations where people use the same objects. These stations will include signage and graphics that direct people to use the hand sanitizing device regularly. For example, a hand sanitizer station in the breakroom can encourage employees to sanitize their hands before opening the fridge or pouring a cup of coffee.
• Hand washing signs: In your office’s bathrooms and over breakroom sinks, you can add signage to encourage proper handwashing. Besides just reminding people to wash their hands, these signs can also go over the appropriate steps for people to take when washing their hands to eliminate viruses. Hand washing signs come in the form of interior signage.
• Policy signage: You likely will be changing some of your policies around gatherings in the office and interpersonal protocols. For instance, you may institute a policy for conference room use that says everyone in a meeting has to sit 6 feet away from one another and come into the room wearing a mask. To keep people informed of these changing policies, many companies have turned to digital signage, as well as other indoor signage.

With signage like this around your office, you can be more confident that you’re doing your part to stop the spread of viruses and keep your staff safe.

Office Signage Media

Now that we’ve looked at the big picture concerning office graphics and the role they play in a workplace, let’s take a more detailed look at what sorts of forms these graphics can take. Some popular options to consider for your office are as follows.

• Dimensional office signs: Dimensional office signs consist of rigid substrates, such as acrylic. An experienced graphics company can cut these custom acrylic office signs in the exact shape you want, creating an impressive, three-dimensional logo or any other text or symbol you want to create. These dimensional office signs make ideal focal points in your reception area or outdoor signs.
• Digital office signs: Digital signage is the new frontier of the graphics world, and it can help your office share current information with guests and employees alike. You can use digital signage in common areas, cycling through news and inspiring messages for employees. You can also use digital signage to make a positive impression on guests in your lobby.
• Floor decals: Floor graphics capture the attention of people looking down at their feet or their phones as they walk through your office building. Floor graphics can help with wayfinding and instructions and can also add fun and engaging visual appeal when used as environmental graphics.
• Hanging PVC signs: Some offices hang thin, PVC signs from ceilings throughout the office to help provide directions or provide other valuable information. These signs work well in hallways to point the way to various amenities or rooms. They can also reinforce branding and inspire employees.
• Mural decals: Murals can transform bland workspaces or lobbies into vibrant areas. These large decals adhere to walls, so you don’t have to worry about repainting when you’re ready for a refresh. Just remove the sticker and replace it with a new one. These murals work especially well as experiential graphics.
• Retractable banner stands: Banners can work both as outdoor and indoor signage. Consider using a retractable banner stand in your lobby or other locations in the office to welcome guests and inspire employees. The best thing about these displays is that they’re mobile, so you can take them with you and use them as marketing tools if you’re exhibiting somewhere.
• Glass and window graphics:Modern office interiors often include a great deal of glass, not just in the form of windows, but of indoor partitions, as well. These glass surfaces provide the perfect canvas for glass finishes and window graphics. There are many types of glass graphics you can use for your office, from subtle privacy panes to bold, colorful window graphics.
• Elevator wraps: Another medium for including graphics throughout your office is an elevator wrap. It’s a decal designed specifically to cover the exterior, and sometimes the interior, of an elevator. You can use elevator wraps to help with wayfinding or to reinforce your branding in a place where you have a captive audience.

The options don’t stop here. No matter what signage you’re looking for to display your custom graphics, SpeedPro can help you bring your vision to life.

Office Graphics From SpeedPro

Office signage should go beyond the bare minimum of labeling rooms or pointing to exits. If you want a thriving office space where employees feel more engaged and clients and business partners are genuinely impressed by what they see, you want to take advantage of what’s possible with big, bold office graphics from SpeedPro. We use cutting-edge print technology and quality materials to create eye-catching graphics that are sure to enhance your office space.

SpeedPro’s nationwide network of print studios makes it easy to connect with a studio in your area. Your local SpeedPro staff can help walk you through the process of selecting signage types and creating a cohesive suite of branded graphics for your workplace. We understand every office is a unique space, which is why you deserve custom graphics that help tell your company’s story. We welcome your questions as you determine the best options for your office.

To get started, find a SpeedPro studio near you.