Dear Desk Diary
Ever felt overwhelmed by the challenges of creating the perfect workspace? You're not alone.
Your employees are likely to spend around 90,000 hours of their lives at work. I'm here to help you make every hour better. Whether you're leading a team, managing an office, or creating spaces people want to work in, join me, Hollie Sanglier, in solving real workplace dilemmas.
Each week, I'll bring in experts to tackle all your issues from boosting team creativity, boosting productivity to designing welcoming workspaces.
As your Workspace Agony Aunt, I'm here to bring insight, solutions, and a touch of calm to your office.
Got a question? Email helpme@deardeskdiary.com or drop me a note on LinkedIn.
Join me on Dear Desk Diary – where we turn workspace woes into workplace wins.
Dear Desk Diary
How to Transform Your Space Using Art
Imagine transforming your workspace into a vibrant canvas that not only inspires creativity but also fosters productivity and reflects the essence of your brand. That's exactly what we unpack on Dear Desk Diary with Katie Henry from Art in Offices and Chhaya, Head of Design from SToiCA , delving into the dynamic intersection of art and the corporate world. Through a lively discussion, we reveal how art is not just a decorative afterthought but a catalyst for enhancing the workplace environment, supporting artists, and reinforcing a company's identity.
This episode peels back the layers on why the art in your office could be the silent partner you never knew you needed. We navigate through the colourful ways art can shape company culture, from original pieces that broadcast your avant-garde spirit to curated prints that exude unwavering professionalism. As we weave through the transformative effects of art on employee wellness and the subtle yet powerful ways it can demarcate different zones within your workspace, we share practical tips for integrating diverse forms of art into every corner of your office landscape. Tune in for an artful journey that promises to leave your workspace—and your mindset—forever changed.
Welcome to Dear Desk Diary. This is series one, episode one. I'm very excited to be recording this podcast. So what is Dear Desk Diary? We are a workspace agony art. We've reached out to our networks and everybody in the industry and people who run offices, office managers, ceos, everybody who works in a workspace, which is kind of all of us and we really want to know the problems that people are facing when they are designing their workspaces or just, you know, living in them. It can be a people problem, like culture. You know, we all have questions about kind of HR and how to run our teams all the way through to kind of design and how we set up our spaces. So I'm very excited for this episode. It's all about art and something a little bit different. Maybe it's not something that we all think about all the time. Designers do, definitely when they think about kind of, you know, showing our spaces, but it's much more than just throwing a picture on a wall or throwing a photo on a wall. So I'm very excited to introduce my guest today. So we have Katie Henry.
Speaker 2:She is the founder director and CEO of Art in Offices, which she founded in 2012. She studied fine art sculpture at Central St Martin's and was then vice president of the Students' Union University at the Arts London. She also has a master's in arts administration and management from Birkbeck College University of London and has completed an accelerator course for creative entrepreneurs. Katie is an active member of the Association of Women Art Dealers. Katie's vision has always been to make art available to everyone.
Speaker 2:She has spent the past few years challenging the perception that only FTSE 100 companies can afford art and made it her mission to encourage companies of any size to put original arts on their office walls by making it affordable. She's a firm believer in art-increasing workplace productivity and the power of art to reflect a company's brand values. Katie works closely with a select handful of artists, ranging from emerging talent to established investment artists like YBAs. Katie has a great eye for spotting emerging talent and has worked with artists who have gone on to win art prizes and have solo shows at museums. She's also well known amongst international galleries and has a wide network of fellow art dealers and galleries. Welcome, so good to have you here.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me on podcast number one. Yay, it's exciting.
Speaker 2:And we also have Chaya, who is our head of design at Stroika.
Speaker 4:So Ty do you want to give a little bit of a background and a little intro to yourself yeah, yeah, so I'm head of design at Stroika Been in the industry for about 17 odd years or something. I love it Actually, really, really enjoyed what we do when we're creating spaces. You know it's somebody's their home right when they're going to be working, living almost for the next couple of years.
Speaker 2:So yeah, fantastic. Well, it's great to have you both. Thank you, it's a very interesting topic. Just to give you a bit of a the listeners, a bit of an overview of how this is going to work. So we're going to have a little bit of a chat about, kind of what art in offices does and a little bit of chat about you know what it means to put art in an office, and then we are going to listen to our agony, aren't questions? So we have four questions from our listeners. We're going to play them and we're going to try and answer them. Well, katie's going to answer them because she's the expert. So, katie, over to you. It'd be great to hear a bit more about your vision and your background and why you just got into this. A bit of success story. Over to you.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much. So I've been running art in offices for 12 years exactly now, founded in February of the year that the Olympics were in London, if you can remember that, follow me, and it seems like a lifetime ago. Why did I found the company? I had just graduated from art school, I'd done my masters and I found myself working in an admin job where I would stare at a white wall all day, every day, and if I wasn't staring at a white wall, I was standing next to a photocopier.
Speaker 3:In fact, I felt like I was going to die that photo copy and I'd had this seed of an idea whilst I was doing my masters. But as I thought about it and developed it, I thought, actually, let's, let's tweak this a little bit. And whilst I was at the photocopier, thinking I would be chained there forever, I thought do you know what? I'm just going to do? It? I'm just going to start my own business. Who do I know? I know a lot of artists. Who do I know who needs art? Anyone like me who's staring at a blank wall all day, every day, especially in offices. And that was it. I had no idea how to run a business whatsoever. So I did this accelerator course with an x dragon from Dragonsten learn some skills. And I've just found my way with this seed, with this idea, since then.
Speaker 3:And the idea has always been that you do not need to be a footsie 100 company to have art in your offices. 12 years ago, you had people like Deutsche Bank with their big art collections, and that was very famous. Bp was sponsoring things like prizes, very famous collections, clifford Chance, all the big merchant banks, and I thought, well, that's great for them. I really is. I'm really happy. But what about people in a six-person office? What about people who have just moved into a blank space with beige carpet and white?
Speaker 2:tables yeah, white walls and you know, and a photocopier?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and a photocopier. Or, even worse, windows onto another brick wall. Oh God, yeah, or no windows whatsoever.
Speaker 2:No windows.
Speaker 3:There weren't that many offices 12 years ago that were like the gherkin it's all glass on the outside that give you lovely views. So I set about making it possible for people to rent artwork, and specifically from emerging artists, and I thought that's a brilliant idea for the artists some of whom were my friends at the time because they get a regular income, they get their artwork seen by other people, they have a new audience because people still have this belief that artists are a charity in VertiCommerce and that they're happy to live off tins of beans and live in their garret. It's not true. Artists need to make a living as much as anybody else. And I thought at the same time I'd be giving people joy joy in their office, and art is really good for business.
Speaker 3:A few years ago I met Professor Craig Knight, who did some research with Exeter University. He did a great study on comparing 10 ordinary blank offices with 10 enriched offices that had plants and art, and the study found that the enriched offices the people who worked in them saw an increase in wellness of 42% Wow, 42%. And that translated directly into productivity going up by 35%. Imagine you're a company making 100,000 pounds a month and you increase that productivity by a third. It's outstanding, and the reason behind it is because, as humans, we are used to living in enriched environments.
Speaker 3:It's only been the last couple of hundred years where we've moved into office spaces. We all used to be out in the fields or in our workshops, or on a market stall, or our house was also our workshop. We're used to being surrounded by lovely things that enrich our day. So it speaks to us as humans. Color is incredible at making people feel in a different mood, you know, relaxed, calm, energetic, zesty, zingy, whatever it may be. It's really good for people's wellness because it decreases depression, it decreases anxiety, it improves your mood. That in turn, for productivity's sake, means less people calling in sick, less staff turnover, less money spent on recruiting staff, less money on making people feel better at work. So if you just add these really two simple things plants and art you have a happier workforce and you're making more money in one fell swoop.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's fascinating. Have you in your experience? Do you find people think about art when they're thinking about their brewery?
Speaker 4:I don't think it comes directly from a client. They don't think about it. I think it's the designer's responsibility to introduce that into their workspace. That's what we tend to do. So we do have like walls where we see, okay, we'll put artwork here, artwork here. We don't know yet what it's going to be, but we do try to encourage them to have it. It might be their corporate values or something, or you know. They come down to that. But like plants, we do say, right, why don't you speak to so and so?
Speaker 3:and then let's see what you can actually get into your space sort of thing, I am very grateful to interior designers and office fit out companies for pushing me towards clients. It always seems to happen at one end of the scale. It's either designers say at the very beginning of a project, saying you should have some art, and the office going oh, that's a good idea, Never thought of that. Or it's at the very end of the scale when everything's been installed and they're like we've got a lot of blank white walls, haven't we? Let's do something about this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what about, like operators, landlords?
Speaker 3:Yes, actually we work really closely with a lot of people like CBRE and workmen and Helix Savals Regent Street Management Association. I think the only company that I haven't done any work with in the city of London is BNP Parrabar. At the moment a lot of the projects are Cate Plus fit outs. So there's lots of landlords investing in lovely, beautifully designed office, lovely locations and dressing them with plants and art, sometimes even down to the minute details like cushions on the chairs, to encourage people to rent their space, and we've had a lot of great success stories recently. The average time seems to be about a year less if the space is dressed with plants and art that it sits on the market. A year less for larger offices, about six months less for the smaller spaces. So it definitely works.
Speaker 2:I wonder if it's because people can picture themselves in the space.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and which comes back to that kind of wellness.
Speaker 2:Thing.
Speaker 3:I have a theory about this. Actually, a lot of the people I speak to are office managers. Office managers are women. Women really get the fine details, they really get the dressings. So if the big CEO has told the office manager go find us a new space, go go. And she's looking around a space and it's boring, she'll be like I can't see it, can't visualize it. If she's in a space that's got plants and art and it's finely dressed, she's like yeah, I'm at home, yeah, we're moving in here, it's cosy. Yeah, exactly, and I get stereotype. It's not always women, it's just. In my experience, that is the majority.
Speaker 2:Yes, often women. Yeah, no, I would agree with that. Amazing. Well, I love what you're doing. It's so fascinating. I yeah, it's wonderful. Let's dive into the questions, shall we before?
Speaker 1:we answer them all.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I'm going to play them and we'll answer them.
Speaker 5:We want to transform our offices to make our team more productive. There's so many choices and considerations, though, from style to theme. Could you guide me on the first steps to take in curating art for our office space, the goals to create an environment that aligns with our company values and creates a positive work culture?
Speaker 3:So the first place I will always start with any new client is their brand identity. When I'm on the phone and someone's doing an exploratory call with me, the questions I will ask are what's your company personality like from your own perspective? What's your company personality? Is it a bit quirky? Is it a mix of old and young? Is it mostly young people? Is everyone in a pinstripe suit during the day, but doing burlesque in the evening? You know what type of personality are you Then?
Speaker 3:what is your company brand? What is that first impression you want when people walk through the door? If it's a new client, what do you want them to think? If it's your staff, what do you want them to think?
Speaker 3:That first impression is the key to putting artwork in the rest of your office. So it might be that you're a family law firm, in which case you want something that seems contemporary but is well known and a safe pair of hands, something that looks like a Rothko or a Picasso or it's in the tape modern, you know, that kind of contemporary. On the other hand, you might be a tech company working with AI, in which case you want something entirely different. You want something that says we are avant garde, we are new, we are the future. That's neon, that's pink, that's millennial colors, that's weird shapes and quirky things that look like 80s arcade games. It's very, very different. That's where I start.
Speaker 3:Then, if you want to bring out the company culture a little bit, the artwork will help, but you've got to work with the social aspect of office life as well. If you're looking to increase, improve, change the dynamic of your company culture. Putting artwork up is a great start because that talks about who you are as a company, that tells the staff who you are, and then maybe throw in the odd workshop. Here and there we do some really fun ones, like Hunger Games vs Art Attack. That's my favourite. It's very high octane. I've done that with Rolls Royce, to name a few, and that's a lot of fun getting people run around a building You're going to have to come and do that with that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think so we need that.
Speaker 3:Sounds really fun.
Speaker 4:It is a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:We never do ordinary workshops like if I'm doing a drawing workshop I'll always do things like blindfold people and make them draw things or draw another people's pieces of paper or, you know, draw the wrong hand. It's more fun. It's never just doing a classic, boring art lesson. Love that. So that's where I would start and it's a good starting point. Put things on your walls, add a bit of fun into the spice of life.
Speaker 2:Amazing, okay, great, let's do the next one. How exciting.
Speaker 1:So we really want to make sure that we're beautifying our office but also supporting the artists behind the work. Do you have any pointers on how to do this? Are there ways to buy art that actually going to make a difference to artists?
Speaker 3:Yes, there are. I think people do still see artists as charities, which, on the one hand, is brilliant because people want to support artists and, on the other, they don't see it as a commercial venture, because artists are their own unique, individual businesses. I think just by putting their artwork on the walls you're already supporting them. That's a new audience immediately for them. But if you want to go the extra mile, you can do things like sponsor studio spaces, you can do an artist residency, you can get the artist to come in and do drawings of the staff or live paintings. We've even done art prizes with art students.
Speaker 3:There was a building two years ago that was just launching a co-working space and we connected with all of the London art schools, ran a massive art prize and then dressed their space with about 150 artworks from students for a year and it looked beautiful. Everyone mentioned it. And there are charities that support artists with disabilities. There are foundations that support artists from different ethnic minorities or collaboratives that are LGBTQ plus artists, black women artists, refugee artists. It can all come together. But I think just having them on your walls is the like the sand to starting point.
Speaker 2:Because I can imagine that people are cautious about putting art on their walls because of price right or not wanting to put like original art on the walls. So lots of the artists will. Just, you can do prints. So like, do you sort of, when you're curating a space, do you just sort of mix prints and original?
Speaker 3:I do, but our print makers only make limited edition prints. I try as hard as possible to avoid poster prints. Imagine you are a client walking into an office and you see something that looks like Ikea art on the wall. When you walk in, that first impression is they haven't bothered. They haven't bothered, they haven't invested, they don't really know what they're doing. It's just a little bit of color and it doesn't. What does that say to a client? It says they're not going to invest in me. Walk into an office where it's wonderfully curated artworks and there's a story behind it. They're supporting artists of color or women artists or art students, local artists. What have you Immediately? That says to that client? They have invested, they know what they're doing, they are cultured, they are knowledgeable. That means they are going to impart all of that on me and I can trust these people to know what they're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it can be done on a somewhat budget, I suppose.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely yeah, I think. On average, our clients spend about £500 a month.
Speaker 4:Oh fine, yeah, that's amazing. The more artwork you want, the more expensive it gets, obviously but, with a mix of large medium and prints.
Speaker 3:Our clients average spend is £500 a month.
Speaker 4:Do you actually rotate art then office to office?
Speaker 3:Yes, so the services we offer are buying artwork, which includes commissioning. Then there are long-term rentals, which for us means 12 months or more, and some people just have the same artwork for years, and years, and years, and years and years. They just don't want to commit to buying it. And then we have subscriptions, which, as any other subscription is you're paying for all of the shipping, logistics etc. And then you can change the artwork every three, four or six months, and most of our clients will change them every six months. And rather than it go from office to office, everything is much more bespoke. So client A might consider themselves a disruptor in the insurance industry and they've got lots of avant-garde weird pieces that we spoke about earlier. Client B might want something much more corporate, so taking them from client A into client B will never work.
Speaker 3:So it's always a very bespoke approach and, yes, rotations are fun, and the best thing about a rotation is, as you'll know as a designer, when you've had something on the wall for six months, it just becomes wallpaper. It's background.
Speaker 4:It's an instant way of updating the office, the look of the feel of the office space, so yeah, I agree Absolutely.
Speaker 3:After six months it changes as a new energy.
Speaker 2:I love the idea of doing an art show like a charity art show. You're making me think about my own marketing strategy for Switzerland.
Speaker 5:What do we do? We can do an event I can feel an event coming in.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool, right, next one.
Speaker 6:Our office is a bit of a maze and I was thinking that art might be able to help define the spaces, more like making it clear where a break zone might end and where the work zone might begin. Do you have any advice on how to use art to do that without just putting you know, like keep out, signs up?
Speaker 3:Why would you put up a keep out?
Speaker 2:sign Like a quiet zone or no talking at night. Phone calls yes.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think if someone like Stoica hasn't come in and zoned it with furniture, artwork is a really good way of zoning spaces, and I would say breakout spaces. Not you'd want something that's green, because that brings the outside in when you want to relax, you want to be amongst greenery. You know, we're humans, we like being in fields, we like being near trees In the open plan workspace areas. I would add something that's corporate but with color. So you're injecting energy but you're not making people go a bit crazy with it.
Speaker 3:And those collaborative work spaces where you want the crazy ideas and you want the productivity.
Speaker 3:Add those zesty colors, add the pinks and oranges and that type of thing, and then in your most people have a suite of meeting rooms where they have their clients come in or do interviews. That's where you want your statement pieces, the things that send a message about who you are, and most people spend a little bit more money on those than they do in the back office and some entirely separate the two. I've had some clients where the front meeting room suite and the front facing is very corporate, very corporate, very serious, and then the back office is completely quirky. It's playful, yeah, because it's for two different sets of people, and I love it when people do that and they consider their staff and what their needs are. So, yes, it's very easy to zone with artwork.
Speaker 2:Do you have artists that can do like murals and things like that? I love a mural yeah we do.
Speaker 3:We've done a couple of murals. They're lots of fun. They take some planning but they seem very personal to companies. Rather than choosing artwork from a catalog when people go, that will do that sort of suits us. A mural is a much bigger investment piece because it's permanent. So there's a lot more work, there's a lot more storytelling, there's a lot more investment on an emotional level from people when those go in.
Speaker 4:I guess that's where you can bring their branding into it, their identity as a corporate or the culture of the business as well.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely. In one case that cultural brand included octopus tentacles.
Speaker 2:Love that. That was fun. We had a co-working space and we used to run a big event on International Women's Day called Kick Ass Women and it was very fun. One year we had this huge staircase that went all the way up through the building and it was completely white and it was really run down and boring. So on the event we got Amira Lester come in and she painted the whole thing with live painting throughout the day so people could go and see it and it had different members of our team and different co-workers and dogs and it was amazing.
Speaker 2:but just bringing the team and the actual company and the brand into the space was just stunning. She was very good. Okay, great, next one.
Speaker 6:I keep reading about how art in the office can boost wellness and productivity. So for real. If so, how can I make sure the art we choose actually helps my team feel better and work smarter? Not just decorate the walls?
Speaker 3:We have touched on this already. We have, but I think it's important to reiterate that, as human beings, working in a plain white box is always going to be soul sucking and energy draining. White is actually a very harsh colour and I've seen lots of offices recently paint walls like beautiful mushroom colours and pale pinks and greens, which I think is a brilliant start, before you even add artwork.
Speaker 3:So when you're choosing artwork, I think making sure it's not just decoration isn't necessarily the crux of the matter. I think artwork for decorative purposes is fine. Just having any art up is actually going to help. Any colours and, as I've said before, if you really want to make it drive home the Bruce productivity and wellness for your staff, it should link to your brand identity. But the colours should also work for whatever you're zoning. So art in a workspace is one of those ways where people just want to come into the office. It's well designed, it's lovely, they'll sit down and relax, they'll feel happy and happy people do their best work they really do and sometimes just having something near your desk so you can take a break from the spreadsheet and look up at something pretty.
Speaker 4:Also fine. I think it brings anxiety down. If you've got work stress at work, just looking at a piece of artwork for a bit automatically will bring that stress level down, sort of thing. So it kind of helps in that sense as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. It's good for just those little mental breaks where you want to reset your mind. It's good for anxiety, it's good for stress levels, it's good for reducing aggression Workplace bullying is still a thing, unfortunately, but it's so good from that perspective. And then if people are happier at work, they're doing their best work, and that's really what every office manager and every boss should be wanting from their staff.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I suppose art can mean lots of different things. I don't know. I think I'm picturing my head just like paintings on a wall, but you've got so many different things. I know we've talked about like murals. You can have like something on the floor, sculptures, water I don't know how far does it go.
Speaker 3:Well, some offices are braver than others. I have to say. Those that are really brave I love working with. They will mix it up. We have crazy jigsaw piece things on the walls. We have massive prints, we have sculptures, we have outdoor sculptures.
Speaker 3:I've never worked with water. I think an indoor water feature in an office would be fabulous, though there's a building in the city that's got a waterfall inside its reception Amazing. I can't remember where that is now, but it's wonderful Going in through what feels like a jungle and into your office. I think the more you mix it up, the more you add textures, the more you add different colours there's any good design I will tell you, the more you're going to feel interested, relaxed, happy and joyful in your work space.
Speaker 2:Fantastic, good. Well, thank you so much for coming, you're very welcome it was fantastic. You can obviously connect with Katie on LinkedIn and the link to our offices will be in the show notes, and we absolutely must collaborate. I've got so many ideas now, I think so yeah.
Speaker 3:We have a lot of residents.
Speaker 2:We need to do an event. It's going to be mega. I can't wait.
Speaker 3:Hunger Games versus Art Attack.
Speaker 4:They've been early Hunger Games fans, fans. That's what we're going to do, 100%.
Speaker 2:Good, well, thank you so much for listening to episode one. Episode two will be hopefully going live in a couple of weeks, so tune in then. Thank you so much, hey, thank you.