Five interior design considerations for your formal boardroom
The boardroom is a key area in your office that can leave a strong impression on clients - these five tips for boardroom design should help you make a good start.
The boardroom is a key area in your office that can leave a strong impression on clients. It’s where clients are met, where pitches are made and where debates over important topics are fought out. For your boardroom to function as you want it to, it needs to be designed and well thought out. The type of business is sure to have an impact on its design, but these five tips should help you make a good start.
Use your logo colours and consider having the logo itself displayed in the boardroom. While many meetings are in-house, fairly often you will have outside visitors in your boardroom. These can include financial planners, new hires that you are tempting away from their current place of work, or other businessmen with whom you are putting together a deal or contract. Why not impress them with some corporate pride?
As mentioned above, use the colours from your logo in your formal boardroom design, but make sure you do it in a tasteful way. Wooden furniture, glass-topped tables, whether with wood underneath or not, and even smooth brushed metal furniture can all look stylish along with being easy to clean. Add in pops of your logo’s colours: the seat upholstery, the curtains, the carpet or rug, or even in the artworks on the wall. All of these small touches, when done right, add up to presenting a polished and professional-looking boardroom that positively oozes professionalism.
Of course, the main furniture items needed in a boardroom are the chairs and the large table, but your boardroom will benefit from having much more alongside these two items. Perhaps a sideboard against one wall, where a coffee maker or kettle can be placed, along with cups and the makings of tea or coffee. A water cooler will be useful too, meaning that meetings do not have to be interrupted by anyone leaving to refill their glass or bottle.
Projection equipment, a computer or laptop with a white-board/ touchscreen connection, or even a flip-chart could be added to make presentations easier and more interesting.
All of the above items can be customised to suit the décor of the boardroom: housings for equipment, and water bottles, non-slip mats for the drinks station, and all the furniture items can be produced in your choose of logo-colour or to match the wood effect you have used elsewhere in the room to provide a polished boardroom aesthetic.
The air quality in the workplace is an important consideration, especially in a boardroom where important decisions are being made and brainstorming sessions are taking place. An air conditioning system will not only ensure that the air is always fresh, but will keep your furniture and paintwork in great condition too. While not strictly an interior design feature, your air quality will make a huge difference to the ambiance and (literally) the atmosphere inside any room.
Before any boardroom renovation, consider the space and dimensions of the room. Long narrow rooms might benefit from having the refreshment station at one end, with the boardroom table at the other end. Small square rooms can be made to feel much more spacious with the addition of a mirrored wall – or even by replacing a solid wall with a glass one. Southern Office Furniture recommend the use of modular flip top tables in their article Top Factors to Consider when Selecting Your Meeting Room Furniture that can be stored when not in use and can be used to meet a multiplicity of requirements.
The furniture inside any room should fit the room’s proportions. Too large a boardroom table will dominate the room, making it seem cramped, while too small a table looks amateurish and lost in the room. Why not purchase a set of identical tables that can be pushed together to make one large one when needed, coming apart when no meetings are scheduled? This will allow the room to serve a dual purpose, while still presenting the very formal boardroom appearance when it is needed.
Whatever design improvements you have in mind keep the functionality, inspiration and energy at its forefront.
