Companies create design standards for many reasons, including brand recognition and to simplify the procurement process. These standards provide explicit direction for the way the company uses art, lighting, space layouts, furniture, fabrics, security, technology and many other components of the design process.
Design standards can serve another purpose — to help the design team understand how much of the project must “stay within the lines” and how much is subject to creative interpretation. Because this ratio is often about 70%-30%, we use the term “Find Your 30” at Taylor Design.
This is an approximation, of course. We settled on “Find Your 30,” but every organization carries different standards, priorities and brand-driven requirements into a design project. For some companies, the ratio is 90%-10%; for others it may be closer to 50%-50%. When we designed our new Sacramento, Los Angeles and Orange County offices, we ensured that our breakdown was 70%-30%.
What does “Find Your 30” mean?
It is as important to identify your ideal ratio as it is to decide to create design standards in the first place. This informs the designer exactly how much freedom they have to use their skill and creativity to celebrate a unique culture from location to location.
Finding Your 30 gives each office a sense of autonomy, and it allows for bigger and broader concepts that emphasize distinctive cultural, historic or other similar attributes. While the “70” holds true to the company’s requirements for branding, company colors, furniture and materials, the “30” affords the designer – in collaboration with the owner and their team – the opportunity to deviate from the standards and introduce artwork, fittings, color accents and other elements that communicate a sense of community and ownership. This freer expression is often used to highlight cultural and historic aspects of the physical location, but can also reference other qualities, such as the firm’s mission, history, signature work or founding partners.
Why is this important?
When a design team goes into a project fully aware of what is flexible and what is not, it saves time, which saves money. Also, when you fail to define the ratio – to Find Your 30 – you lose an opportunity to simultaneously illustrate brand consistency with a uniqueness of place. This is particularly true in a renovation setting, where the goal is to seamlessly marry existing finishes with newly created standards in a complementary way. This lack of direction can lead to decisions being made on the fly, often badly. It invites confusion, crushes momentum and can cast a pall over the entire project.
The challenge and opportunity
Taylor Design approached its latest office space updates with a firm commitment to allowing each office 30% choice to promote the uniqueness of their space. Like many multiple-office firms, we encountered both lease extensions and entirely new locations, which added to the challenge. As we set about creating spaces that represent the singular Taylor Design Brand, while giving each location room to design a thoughtful story, we asked ourselves a number of questions:
![randing, flooring and furniture found in other Taylor Design offices are seen in the foreground (the 70%), with a specialty wallcovering (the 30%) in the background.](/sites/default/files/inline-images/Find%20Your%2030%20Image%202%20-%20LA%20Office.jpg)
What do we want clients and employees to feel and think about when they are in the space? As both designers ourselves and occupants of the space, we know that the answer lies in telling a lasting narrative about who Taylor Design is, what we stand for, and how the occupants of this particular office are firmly in the Taylor Design fold, yet also representative of the characteristics of the locality. The “30” helps to define the entire experience.
What standards should we employ? Standards in this context offer two parallel benefits: they help accentuate the brand (e.g., values, mission) and illustrate the culture (e.g., what makes us different). The goal is to craft a meaningful story within our spaces that keeps our mission front and center — “Design that Empowers People” — while sharing who we are as a distinctive community of designers.
Should we concentrate the “30” in a single part of the office or spread it throughout? In some cases, but especially when the ratio is 90%-10%, the creative component is limited to one space – often the lobby. We decided quickly that we wanted to weave our 30% throughout the space. One of the ways we decided to represent the uniqueness of place within the context of Taylor Design was to ask our founder, Linda Taylor, to use her remarkable artistic talent to provide paintings that are specific to each location. As a result, her artwork graces multiple locations in each office. Also, with the full 30% to work with, we had sufficient room to convey our story in multiple areas, including deep into the space to help emphasize brand identity to visitors and to our staff.
Which design elements fall in both the 70% and the 30%? The theory of “Find Your 30” doesn’t require every design component to fall within one camp or the other; it can sometimes be in both. For example, in our office renovations, employees shared their personal inspirations with Linda Taylor to help stimulate the original artwork of each location. Commissioning Linda to contribute paintings falls in the 70% standard – each office will have a piece of her art. However, because each piece reflects the unique inspiration of the employees in the office, it also falls within the 30%. The same holds true for engaging with local community artists. Each office location worked with and commissioned an original piece of art from a community artist. As with our founder’s art, the community artist’s work is part of both the 70% and the 30%.
![This view of Taylor Design’s Orange County office emphasizes standard programming elements, including standards that are the vibrant colors strategically placed, project work on display and a specific type of delineation with the use of curtains.](/sites/default/files/inline-images/Find%20Your%2030%20Image%203%20-%20OC%20Office.jpg)
How should we get where we want to be? We held workshops featuring exercises that helped define the challenge of each space and seek solutions within the framework of Find Your 30. We used 70%-30% as an aid to determine whether a challenge or solution belonged to the rigid design standards of the former, or the freedom of expression in the latter. For example, we specified material, including natural grass and a graphic wallcovering, explicitly to illustrate to our clients’ how to introduce biophilia in sophisticated ways.
At the heart of it, Find Your 30 is about the experience of a place. Experience is defined by the culture – it’s the feeling you carry with you after you leave. It is the layering of information and how it eventually comes together as a cohesive story. It is about the things that make a space memorable. So when a design team adapts design standards appropriately and insightfully, within the context of the 70%-30% rule, the result is a space that supports and enhances your organization’s message, mission and values.
About the Author
Stephanie L’Estrange is Principal/Director of Interior Design for Taylor Design, a multidiscipline design firm with five offices in California.
Related Stories
| Aug 20, 2013
Code amendment in Dallas would limit building exterior reflectivity
The Dallas City Council is expected to vote soon on a proposed code amendment that would limit a building’s exterior reflectivity of “visible light” to 15%.
| Aug 16, 2013
Today's workplace design: Is there room for the introvert?
Increasingly, roaming social networks are praised and hierarchical organizations disparaged, as workplaces mimic the freewheeling vibe of the Internet. Research by Susan Cain indicates that the "openness" pendulum may have swung too far.
| Aug 14, 2013
Green Building Report [2013 Giants 300 Report]
Building Design+Construction's rankings of the nation's largest green design and construction firms.
| Aug 13, 2013
DPR's Phoenix office, designed by SmithGroupJJR, affirmed as world's largest ILFI-certified net-zero facility
The new Phoenix Regional Office of DPR Construction, designed by SmithGroupJJR, has been officially certified as a Net Zero Energy Building by the International Living Future Institute (ILFI). It’s the largest building in the world to achieve Net Zero Energy Building Certification through the Institute to date.
| Aug 8, 2013
Stanley Hardware introduces Flexi-Felt for protecting floors
Stanley Hardware offers a solution to the frustrating problem of protecting your floors. The answer is Flexi-Felt®, an innovative product line that eliminates the aggravation of frequently replacing felt pads and leg tips that usually wear down or fall off, causing damage to expensive floors.
| Aug 8, 2013
New green property index could boost REIT investment in more sustainable properties
A project by the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT), the FTSE Group, and the U.S. Green Building Council to jointly develop a Green Property Index could help REITs attract some of the growing pool of socially responsible investment money slated for green investments.
| Aug 6, 2013
CoreNet: Office space per worker shrinks to 150 sf
The average amount of space per office worker globally has dropped to 150 square feet or less, from 225 square feet in 2010, according to a recent global survey conducted by CoreNet Global.
| Aug 6, 2013
Australia’s first net zero office building features distinctive pixelated façade
Australia's first carbon neutral office building, featuring a distinctive pixelated façade, recently opened in Melbourne.
| Jul 30, 2013
In support of workplace chatter
As the designers of collaborative work environments, architects and engineers understand how open, transparent spaces can cultivate the casual interaction and knowledge sharing that sparks innovation. Now a new study reveals another potential benefit of open workplaces: social interaction that supports happier employees.
| Jul 29, 2013
2013 Giants 300 Report
The editors of Building Design+Construction magazine present the findings of the annual Giants 300 Report, which ranks the leading firms in the AEC industry.