Your Guide to Corporate Branding Using Fine Art

How Adding the Right Artwork to Your Business Can Enhance Your Brand Image and Generate Revenue

What an exciting time it is starting and building a business!  Your profession is your heart and soul and a large part of who you are as a person. 

Although there’s a lot of work involved, a fun part of the process is setting up the visual branding, right?  You hired a branding expert to help choose your company colors, imagery, messaging, logo, and everything else needed to keep your brand cohesive and recognizable.  Well, almost everything…

What’s on your company’s walls, the floors, the ceiling? How are your clients visually greeted when they enter your business and what surrounds your employees each day? Blank walls? Builder grade, drop ceilings? Mass produced, inspirational posters or prints? Too many business owners do not think much about art and design products when designing their office so they either do not add art to their business or quickly pick up decorative items without thinking of how the imagery and product quality will affect their business.

What’s on your walls matters.

Put yourself in your clients’ and employees’ shoes. How do they want to feel when they enter into your place of business for services or to work all day? Empowered? Connected? Soothed? Inspired? If they enter a business that exhibits ratty, old artwork, mass produced prints in cheap frames or blank walls, their cheery attitude fades because the space may feel old, dirty or neglected. For businesses who have nice furniture and updated equipment, blank walls make the space feel unfinished.

Research shows that investing in art and artists contributes to the well-being and culture of a business overall, making it a more attractive place for talent to work.  Customers would rather spend their money in a creative, inviting space that they feel supports their community. And studies have shown that being exposed to art allows a person to feel more creative and open to innovation. “To understand the force of art, try imagining for a moment a business world devoid of any visual creative stimulus,” says Kai Kuklinski, CEO of AXA Art, the world’s largest specialist art insurer.

Your clients may only be in your place for an hour, but your employees spend hours and hours onsite so how they feel at work truly matters and will affect their performance. In fact, recent studies show that when companies buy art and display the works throughout the office, that exposure can help spur creativity and innovation. And when employees are motivated and happy, they are more productive which increases your bottom line.

Giving access to art so that paintings, sculptures, and photography are visible means culture and creativity are part of the employees’ and clients’ work life. Keeping your staff surrounded by quality art and design products will increase productivity generating more income for your business.

Help them to feel your brand.

If you do not have a style guide or brand identity document, write down 3-5 adjectives that tell how you want people to feel when they enter your business or work for you.  Review the adjectives and pick out one or two that are most important and fit your brand image. Now that you know how you want people to feel, it’s time to begin searching for the art pieces that can support your choices.

Determine your 12-month art budget then break it down into bite sized, quarterly pieces. Remember that you’ll possibly pay shipping and sales tax with each purchase so leave room in your budget.

Begin the search.

Begin with your local galleries and frame shops. Although they may only have a sliver of local talent available compared to online sources, it’s important to support local and they’ll start you on the right path. Online sources, like my Embrace Creatives are a wonderful way to expand your creative choices but be careful – most online companies do not curate the artists or artwork and you can end up with low quality work or a creator who does not value your time or money.

No matter where you go to research art for your company, it’s work and it can become frustrating when your mind’s eye knows what it wants but you can’t find it immediately. Curating artwork is a process and takes a lot of time but because it’s an important part of your brand message and image, add it to your company’s operating tasks so it doesn’t feel like an outside chore.

Quality art for every budget.

You do not have to be a large corporation to invest in art for your business. Any sized budget will do. Commit to high quality art that fits your brand image and go slowly. It’s not a race. You want to be mindful when researching artwork and look deeper than the product, choosing quality pieces from reliable artists, like the ones I curate into my online art showroom.  Artists who are experts in their craft will produce pieces that last a very long time, and possibly increase in value. 

Because finding the right art, in the right brand colors, that fit your space and budget is time consuming, and you have a business to run – think about hiring an art expert. Art advisors know a TON of artists, will present you with an array of targeted options to choose from, understand branding and its emotional connection to art, and, if they’re great at their job, introduce you to imaginative art that goes beyond mere paintings or framed photographs. The right art advisor brings incredible value and will transform space, and heighten your business brand, inspiring clients and staff.

This article was written by Andrea Bogart, professional artist, lead art consultant and the founder of Embrace Creatives, matching you with original art to love.

Website: https://embracecreatives.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/embracecreatives/