A How-To Guide: Art For Businesses & Commercial Real Estate

Written by:

Evan La Ruffa

May 27, 2020

When managing any offices or real estate, there are a variety of considerations that come into play. Everything from lighting, to finishes, durability of materials, accents, palettes, design elements, and finishes. Understanding your options can be daunting, but a simple process can help you identify the right art services for your business or commercial real estate spaces. Follow these steps to get great art for your businesses or commercial real estate.

If any questions come up, feel free to reach out to our team via the GET INVOLVED tab in the main menu. The process for each comes down to 3 main points before you get to the project itself and hire a vendor:

Determine Goals – the best case scenario for the project — what’s your goal?
Focus Aesthetics – 3 words that describe the aesthetic you’re going for — what’s the personality?
Envision Activation – art can turn heads — what story will the art tell?

There are also considerations for each type of space, ahead we unpack some of those.

Getting Art for Businesses v Commercial Real Estate

This is a clear divide, mostly because of the size of the project. If you are an office manager, executive assistant, or managing facility decisions for a single business space, it’s really a much more straight-forward process. Once you have executive sponsorship & an approved aesthetic, nailing down your budget and calling in an art consultant is all you need to do.

For commercial real estate art activations, floor plans, palettes and more red tape will need cutting, but it really becomes about spreading budget across the various facilities you’re looking to activate with art and prioritizing in case certain facilities are more important than others.

Impact Areas

For individual businesses, it’s about identifying the doorways, waiting areas, conference rooms, and sitting areas. It’s not about putting art all over your office, it’s about tastefully enhancing the energy of the space with opportunely placed pieces.

For commercial real estate, we’re looking at longer hallway gallery wall installations, bigger pieces in atriums and large lobby spaces, and larger scale options present themselves. Murals are also more apropos for commercial real estate applications.

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Flow and Space

The last thing you want is art that can only be viewed from super-close or pieces that obstruct walkways or blunt flow. Anyone putting art in front of a closet should be questioned. It’s also about spacing so that the flow feels right, that the art be a tasteful accompaniment to the design and lighting, not crammed into every bit of wall space.

Commercial real estate and the types of properties often involved, have some nice advantages that can create scale, a sense of awe, or even gradations of color palettes.

Aesthetics & Clientele

Clearly, the people using the space should be at the center of deciding what aesthetics you bring to your space. This is something that is fairly consistent for both individual businesses and commercial real estate applications.

Knowing who you serve is huge. That will inform whether or not you go with photography or pop art, murals or small matted portraits.

Rentals v Purchases

Rentals are great in that your art rotates, is refreshed constantly, and you don’t have to worry about repairs, storage, inventory management, and all the things that can steal times from your team’s internally if not delegated to a great vendor.

Over time, you might spend more on rentals than purchases, but you also save yourself all the work that goes with purchasing art and ensuring it is protected, cared for, and managed properly.

Purchases are a lovely route to go if you don’t mind managing every aspect of the collection internally and are focused on building an asset. Art is a solid investment when dealing with larger ticket items, and it can be very attractive to potential clients and partners that your company have an art collection to share, display, and leverage.

Getting the perfect art for businesses or commercial real estate can be a vexing prospect, but we’re here to help! Check out our art rental program, art consulting, and mural program.