How to choose tasteful, functional office decor

In the context of the office, everyone’s got horror stories about people who overdecorate.

Whether it’s 25 framed cat photos or collections of dusty … well, just about anything, there are always people who overdo it. Ideally, you have an opportunity to decorate your office tastefully, without becoming one of these horror stories.

Here are a few tips!

Stay within color scheme

It’s OK to stray from this a bit, but try not to pull in every color from the rainbow when you’re decorating your office. Most things will look better if they stay within a basic color scheme. If possible, it should be the same color scheme as the office itself (or at least complement that theme well).

A good color scheme will likely have some sort of texture in a relatively neutral color (browns, tans, grays, whites), and a single accent color that is used in multiple locations.

The golden rule of design is relevant: if you’re doing it once and once only, you shouldn’t be doing it. Repetition is beautiful.

Keep organized

Don’t allow your decor to distract. No one dislikes an uncluttered desk. It’s ideal for the decor you’re adding to your space to not seem clutter at all. If you find it difficult to clear your workspace at the end of each day (which is required, by the bye, in a lot of offices), then very likely you’re cluttering a bit too much.

Avoid Kitch

Don’t follow trends too closely. If you think your decor would look bad in 10 years, that’s a decent rule of thumb that it might look bad now, whether it looks bad to you or not.

Abraham Moles, an aesthetic researcher, identifies five elements of kitch which should be avoided:

• incompatibility of function and form
• accumulation of various functions in one object
• synesthesia, or the impact on many senses at once
• mediocrity
• comfort and lack of complexity

Hide cables and hardware (and trash)

This isn’t possible for every job, but every office looks better without the rats’ nest of cables that often seems to come with professional jobs. Hide those if you can. There are numerous products available to help tame your cables, which often are the first thing that catches the eye.

If your trash can is see-through, then try to cover that up in some way.

Ensure that storage is adequate

This seems very simple, but the biggest reason for having too much clutter is either that there’s simply too much stuff in the office, or that those items don’t have a home. Give items that should have a place somewhere to be put away, and remove the rest. Easy to say – hard to do.