Branded Environments (3 Examples): How a Custom Space Embodies Your Business
Step into any major retailer, restaurant chain, or supermarket, and you can likely identify each brand by their interiors alone. That’s because businesses express their brand through their commercial spaces through a combination of colors, signage, custom assets, and more.
Our experts draw from their extensive experience designing restaurants, hotels, and commercial areas to share how companies can brand their environments. Learn what goes into space branding and dive into three examples.
Need help communicating your brand through your space? Talk to our team at Trade Design Build.
What Is a Branded Environment?
A branded environment is a physical space designed to reinforce your brand’s identity through spatial details. Branded signage, murals, logomarks, and color palettes are clear branding elements. But details such as the building materials, layout, lighting, and furniture all play an integral role in cultivating a specific brand identity within your space.
Often, branded environments combine architectural and experiential interior design with customer experience design to immerse visitors in your brand. This is key to craft custom commercial interiors that people remember.
This is critical for hospitality brands that rely on in-person customer interactions to sell. For example, a coffee shop that believes in eco-friendly sourcing might use reclaimed wood, warm lighting, and live plants to convey a commitment to sustainability. This aesthetic would appeal to environmentally-conscious customers and strengthen the brand’s values.
Why Does My Business Need a Branded Environment?
Businesses and organizations rely on branded environments to cultivate a specific customer experience. The goal is to design a custom space that amplifies your business’s brand message and sets the tone for customer interactions. Think of it as translating your brand into a tangible space that people can interact with.
The main benefits of branded spaces include:
First impressions matter – Intentional commercial spaces communicate your brand tone immediately.
Stronger customer connections – When your space feels authentic to your brand, customers feel like they belong there, and they’re more likely to come back.
Memorable Spaces – A unique, memorable space helps your brand stand out in saturated markets. Distinct interiors can also increase brand recall without explicit logos.
Employee engagement – A well-designed space can energize staff, boost morale, and reinforce company culture
How Do I Design a Branded Environment?
Expressing your brand through your commercial space takes time and consideration, and there are several brand elements to think through. Businesses should collaborate with an experienced team to translate their brand into a customer-centric experience.
The Key Steps to Creating a Branded Environment:
Step 1: Consult an architect – Architects help translate your brand values into functional, beautiful spaces. Browse an architect’s portfolio to see if their style and capabilities match your needs. Architects specialized in hospitality, hotels, and restaurants are particularly attuned to customer behaviors.
Step 2: Solidify your vision – Share your brand guidelines with your architect and talk through your business’s identity, tone, and atmosphere. Then, share what you want out of the space. Inspiration boards and precedents are a good way to identify an overall aesthetic.
Step 3: Conduct a feasibility study – Commercial spaces must adhere to specific building codes to ensure customer safety and building code requirements. An architect can lead a feasibility study to ensure your design goals align with your budget, site conditions, and regulatory requirements.
Step 4: Stay involved throughout construction – When working with Trade Design Build, clients communicate with a single point of contact for updates on project progress. But there’s a whole team involved behind the scenes, from professional designers and construction to millworkers and interior designers. Trust your team’s expertise and work collaboratively with them.
Step 5: Customize the details – After construction is complete, how you furnish your space and your customer touch points (e.g., chairs, servingware, etc.) can make all the difference when crafting the ambiance. Think about your brand from tactile, visual, customer service perspectives and have fun with it!
3 Examples of Branded Environments From Trade Design Build
1. Osmote Tasting Pavilion
The Osmote Tasting Pavilion is an outdoor tasting room that embodies the brand’s distinct down-to-earth winemaking approach and appreciation for the local environment. As a producer of agricultural products, Osmote wanted to convey its unique connection to the land and the role the Finger Lakes played in maintaining the vineyards and producing wine.
We articulated Osmote’s brand through a tasting pavilion that offers uninterrupted views of the surrounding rural landscape and Seneca Lake. The structure featured larch wood, which grows abundantly in the Finger Lakes. Finally, the design itself is a reinterpretation of local Amish-style pole barns, immersing visitors in the land.
Our work to reinforce Osmote’s brand story through its architecture helped us earn a feature in Live Your Dream magazine (pg 34–35).
2. Wellbeing Pediatrics
Wellbeing Pediatrics approached Trade Design Build to envision an office that was as playful as their branding. They wanted to make trips to the doctor more comforting for their young patients and alleviate any fears of going to the doctor. The driving emotions for the branded space were care, trust, and comfort.
We drew inspiration from their logo, which featured soft curved forms, and repeated the curved shape throughout the office. This wasn’t limited to painted shapes on the walls but included custom-built reception desks, cased openings, and clerestory windows. Vibrant, welcoming colors and light wood tones set the stage for the brand’s mission to provide child-friendly healthcare services.
3. The Watershed Bar
When developing the Watershed Bar’s space branding, we knew we needed to design an environment around a sense of community. We formatted the dining area to feel intimate and promote conversations between patrons. Flowing ceiling drapes incorporate the brand’s themes of weaving and unity while also serving to dampen overflow sound.
In the spirit of the Watershed’s low-waste bar program and sustainability mindset, Trade used reclaimed wood and milled mahogany to craft a refined atmosphere. The bar was set in a historic building, so we leaned into existing features while keeping the brand environment cohesive with the structure.
Express Your Brand Through Your Environment With Trade
A well-designed space tells your story, engages your customers, and sets you apart from the competition. By working with architects who specialize in branded spaces, you can create a custom environment that embodies your vision and leaves a lasting impression. Connect with Trade Design Build to learn how your space can be an extension of your brand.
