Progressive educators recognize that the learning process should not be limited to the classroom and the exchange between teachers and students. In fact, according to a 2013 Gallup State of America’s Schools Report, only 55% of K-12 students are engaged in the traditional learning process.

Introducing experiential graphics into built environments turns the building itself into an educator. Consider a simple example of  labeling a drinking fountain in multiple languages with engaging typography. Not only does this teach one how to say drinking fountain in other languages, it teaches a more subtle value of inclusiveness.

The value of ambient learning is not limited to the education industry. The truth is, every organization is in the business of educating. Businesses educate their employees and customers on their history, their processes, their products. Non-profit organizations educate their volunteers, donors and those they serve. Religious institutions educate their people as well. In fact, historically, churches have done a magnificent job through stained glass and art. Consider that Leonardo DaVinci’s famous “Last Supper” painting was commissioned for the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what pictures would make a difference in your building?  Schedule an appointment to explore what ambient learning could do for you.

See just a few of the examples of ambient learning we developed for Delta College below.

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Your building and office space is your chance to influence how people feel in your space and what they think about you and your company. Your name probably already exists on the outside of your building – and it should, to identify you. Do you really want to repeat the same thing inside your front doors? No. Let’s be honest, your guests already know your company name and so do your employees.

Your building should tell your story and your reception area is the first chapter.

Seize the opportunity to say something people don’t know about you, and don’t feel you must use words.  If your clients come in anxious or fearful, give them peace.  If it’s your staff that makes your company so special, show it. If you’re a non profit organization, show a picture that represents your mission. Please, just show or say something other than your company name.

Your goal is to create a conversation starter. No one is going to ask you about your name.

The picture above is a reception area we designed for an engineering firm. Not what you’d expect, right? Well neither is their innovative approach to what they do. We had the wall hand painted by a street artist. It’s a conversation starter with their guests…”Wow, tell me about that!”

Need help with this? Let’s talk.

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Our clients often call on us to help them re-imagine the exterior of their buildings. It could be a dentist that acquired an older practice. It could be a retailer or restaurant that is moving into a spot previously held by a similar business. It could be a manufacturer that wants to increase name and brand recognition. The reasons are nearly endless, but the goal is generally the same: to make people notice and express the brand.

While signage is part of the solution, something more is often needed. While the “more” could involve more expensive architectural changes or cladding, “more” can often be accomplished at a much lower cost with a well-designed exterior paint job. Usually, the client had budgeted to repaint the building anyway.

This is something we practice as we preach!  The above picture is of our new studio.  The incremental cost to paint the 3-color design shown was just 10% more than if we had painted it a single gray color!

Successful design doesn’t have to be expensive.  Schedule an appointment to re-imagine the exterior of your building or explore the Power of Paint.

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Street Level Work Environments

Exterior glass walls at the street level offer lots of natural light, but also expose workers to pedestrian eyes.  Sometimes rooms with exterior windows are exposed to too much sun, creating glare and temperature issues. Street level exterior windows can also be a concern at night when greater internal lighting relative to exterior ambient light allows everything to be visible to the outside world.  If you have team members working late into the evening, this can cause a security concern.  Here we applied a custom-designed window graphic to let the right amount of light in while addressing these concerns.  This solution also increased marketing exposure for the same price.

A Little Privacy, Please

With conference rooms and huddle rooms, our customers want to keep sensitive presentation content from being viewed by people walking by.  Other times they want to protect the identity of their clients or guests.  Blocking out distractions outside the meeting room is also a common request.  Determining the right level of opacity and translucency is unique to each environment.  Here a custom-designed window graphic maintained the nature theme used throughout the interior design.

More Focused Huddles

Huddle rooms and conference rooms are often used for focused collaboration.  A common request is to use custom window graphics to help block out distractions while maintaining a level of openness that allows natural light in and reveals whether or not a huddle room is in use.  Here we accomplished these objectives with a solution designed from three layers of graphic film and in consideration of flooring patterns.

Interior Design Integration

While our customers want to increase the privacy, they don’t want to just cover it all up.  One of our customer’s said it best – “I don’t want a shower curtain!”  Today, we have hundreds of films to get creative with. While frosted films are a popular look, translucent colors and a variety of textures are also available.  Even with frosted films, we have dozens to choose from with varying levels of opacity, coarseness and textures.  Designing the right solution to connect with the rest of your interior is important for creating the greatest impact with your space.

Keeping it Safe!

Finally, the same transparency that makes glass an attractive material to use, can also make it a danger for people to walk into!  Here we created a vertical translucent stripe using a brand color to enhance the interior design and keep people safe!

Ideation Orange is an industry leader in branding spaces using interior design, signs and environmental graphics.  If you would like more information on how your space can help you achieve your goals, contact Ideation Orange in Hazel Park, Michigan.

Photos © 2018 Gene Meadows

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The Power of the Tangible

Physical experiences are powerful and carry weight.  Words have become cheap – people can easily tell you what you want to hear.  When a business takes the time to think about how they want their guests to feel and invests money on a physical experience that expresses their company’s difference, value proposition, and culture, it builds credibility. Vestibules, lobbies, reception desks and waiting areas are all tangible experiences in your facilities that are shaping the first impression.

Who Are You Impressing?

Our clients often have their customers or prospective customers in mind when they come to us to help shape an entrance or threshold experience.  While these guests are important, the experience also influences the perception of current and prospective employees, members, business partners, vendors, and investors.

How Do You Want Your Guests to Feel?

When designing spaces, we ask our customers, “how do you want your guests to feel?”  The answers to this question will vary, reflecting the industry our customer is in and their unique offering in that industry.  Answers include safe, invigorated, comfortable, confident, peaceful, proud and many more.

Different Designs for The Same Feeling

It’s not uncommon for two businesses to want to create the same feeling – e.g. comfort.  The right creative solution for each business, however, will be different based on the nature of that building and the needs of their guests.  For example, what makes a guest comfortable walking into an estate planning law firm to discuss a recent death in the family is quite different than what makes a business owner comfortable walking into the office of a technology consulting firm to talk about how to use technology for a competitive advantage.

If you’d like help shaping the first impression made by your facility – whether a lobby, reception area, waiting room, or vestibule, contact Ideation Orange in Hazel Park, Michigan.  We exist to maximize the impact of built-environments using signage, environmental graphics, and interior design.  We create branded environments.

Photos © 2018 Gene Meadows

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They were speaking our language.  We call it space branding and storytelling and we were excited to partner with them to accomplish these goals.

Goal No. 1 – Increase Sales & Revenue with Storytelling

With roots in parts distribution, Morrell has grown through multiple company acquisitions into the Morrell Group, a company capable of providing fully-engineered and manufactured solutions in multiple industries.  Simply put, many of their customers did not comprehend all that the Morrell Group was capable of solving for them. As existing and prospective customers regularly toured the Morrell Group Headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan as part of their buying process, this facility was the perfect place to tell the full story.

Together We Can & Life Cycle Icons

A tour of the facility would begin in the Sales and Project Management workspace, where we communicated Morrell Group’s mission, values, and complete life-cycle capabilities. We integrated custom icons to represent the capabilities offered by Morrell Group as a whole.

Moving the Midwest

To break up the white space on the walls, we used graphics to showcase the Morrell Group locations across the Midwest. This allowed visitors to see that Morrell Group was more than just the one location they were touring.

Solutions Center

A designated Solutions Center was created to showcase components and engineered solutions. Large lettering and environmental graphics formalized the entry to the space and added excitement.

Solutions Center Interior

The Solutions Center offers guests the opportunity to discover examples of real-world solutions that Morrell Group has developed in a museum-like environment. Each of the different brands utilized by Morrell Group is showcased in such a way that visitors can see how the individual components contribute to the overall solution.

One Team, Infinite Solutions, Factory Interior

A tour through the shop floor was used to further open guest’s eyes to the more expansive solution set that Morrell Group was capable of delivering.

Goal No. 2 – Recruit & Retain Top Talent

The company competes for top talent in both engineering and manufacturing. They want prospective employees to feel that their company is a “cool place to work” while communicating their strong history,  innovations, and marketplace strengths.

Reception

The new reception area was marked with the company logo and brand color. Custom artwork was selected to reflect the brand’s emphasis on motion and bring a level of sophistication to the space.

Collaboration Lounge

During the Discovery process, we uncovered a literature room that had outlived its usefulness. Racks of unused brochures were using up space. We recommended the repurposing of this room as a collaboration lounge, a designated place where teams could come together to solve customer challenges, a place less formal than one of the conference rooms.

Moving America, Factory

Brand messaging such as “Moving America” was coined and brought to select areas to spotlight the company’s national impact and promote pride.

Break Room

A mural, brand colors, and messaging in the Break Room emphasize the most valuable component of Morrell Group – its people. To further make the point that their team members are important, significant employee achievements are recognized in the Break Room.

Goal No. 3 – One Company:  Together We Can

As we mentioned before, Morrell Group evolved through the acquisition of multiple companies. As a result, not only customers but employees often identified with the individual brands. The goal, however, was to bring everyone together as one, developing and delivering solutions that involved the group.

“Through the design process, it became clear that we needed to elevate and spotlight the identity of the Morrell Group over the sub-brands that existed. We wanted employees to identify with the Morrell Group, not just Stegner Controls or the other brands. To accomplish this, we incorporated messages like One Team. Infinite Solutions and Together We Can.”  Michael Garavaglia, Ideation Lead Designer

 

One Team, Infinite Solutions

We emphasized the power of the unified company by using large messaging in the manufacturing shop.

Morrell Group Conference Room

While sub-brands continue to exist in the marketplace given their name recognition, we designed a hierarchy that shows they are clearly part of the Morrell Group company. Consistency was brought to the sub-brands through typography and icon treatment to level the playing field. We also brought this brand hierarchy to the conference rooms.

Together We Can – Values

We further strengthened the identity of Morrell Group by designing their mission, values, and cross-brand capabilities into the main office area and other areas of the building.

Exterior Signage

Branded spaces include both the interior and exterior of a building. Exterior signage extends the brand identity to the outside of Morrell Group’s building.

“We originally contacted Ideation as we were looking for a company to help better explain Morrell Group to the people visiting our building.  Prior to working with Ideation, it was hard to determine what Morrell Group does when in our office space and conference rooms.  Jon and Michael took the time to listen to our story and how we wanted to show our company to our customers and vendors.  We worked with the Ideation team over the following weeks and months to pull together all of these details and they presented their vision for our office. 

We are now able to really show what Morrell Group believes in and where we are headed.  We also wanted to continue to invest in our people and improve the work spaces and break room for them.  We want our team to be proud of where they work and also enjoy their areas of the building.  Ideation did a great job with these areas and our team is very happy with the changes.  The quality of work from design, production and installation was fantastic.  We have had fantastic feedback from our visitors and feel Ideation helped us achieve our original goal.”  – Mark Garrett, President of Morrell Group

 

Ideation Orange is an industry leader in branding spaces using interior design, signs and environmental graphics.  If you would like more information on how your space can help you achieve your goals, contact Ideation Orange in Hazel Park, Michigan.

Photos © 2018 Gene Meadows

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