Contentful Office Wayfinding & Workplace Brand Experience Design
A BRAND EXPERIENCE DRIVEN WORKPLACE — Welcoming to Everyone
Client
Contentful Germany
Industry
Software Development, Tech
Services
Brand Experience Strategy & Design, Wayfinding, Environmental Graphic Design, Naming, Branding
Year Completed
2023
Project Photography
Koy+Winkel, Sprühsinn, Startling Brands
Winner
2023 SEGD Global Design Merit Award for Wayfinding
Nominee
ArchDaily Building of the Year 2024
Contentful is the world’s leading composable content platform for digital builders at digital-first companies. Over 25 percent of Fortune 500 companies use Contentful to create and manage digital experiences for their customers across every channel. Founded in Berlin in 2012, the global enterprise employs over 750 people from 70 nations in locations in Berlin, Denver and San Francisco. Contentful connects a vast app and partner ecosystem together with their API-based software to free digital builders to build the next chapter of digital experiences. Today, more than half a million programmers and thousands of companies worldwide rely on the Berlin unicorn, including brands such as Siemens, Plaid, Danone, Bang & Olufsen, Zalando, and N26.
From 2020 to 2022, we partnered with the interior design studio toi toi toi creative studio affectionately known as T3 to deliver wayfinding and environmental graphic design applications for Contentful’s new 8 215 m2 new office in Berlin’s neighborhood of Gesundbrunnen.
TRANSFORMING BRANDING INTO THE WAYFINDING AND ENVIRONMENTAL GRAPHIC DESIGN
Creating a three-dimensional brand experience
As one of the most valued German software companies, Contentful has endured accelerated growth that propelled the need to translate its brand into a large-scale office environment. Our role was to build a wayfinding system that extends Contentful’s brand identity and delivers environmental graphic design applications that enrich the workspace with artworks showcasing Contentful’s values.
ELEVATED ROOM PICTOGRAMS
Helping users to navigate the environment
Contentful’s Berlin office has over 120 rooms leading from narrow corridors. We designed an elevated wayfinding system to help employees quickly navigate the environment. The color-coded pictograms for meeting rooms, toilets, tea kitchens , and other specialty rooms enable employees to quickly and easily recognize the room’s function from a distance.
ACCESSIBLE AND INCLUSIVE SIGNAGE SYSTEM
Following the design language of the interior
The acrylic plexiglass signage system follows the shape language of the interior and enhances the workspace inclusivity with Braille wayfinding. Combined with 3D printed arrows and floor indicators, it embodies Contentful’s playful visual identity. The stenciled Kroppen font—our primary wayfinding typeface—gives the overall solution a technological accent while steering away from the usual tech design clichés.
We echoed the signage system in the stairwell areas by using dimensional letters combined with colorful floor indicators.
GLASS WINDOWS DECALS
Patterns enhancing the room privacy
The glass is a dominant surface material in the new Contentful office. We built a level system for window film applications to improve workplace safety and enhance room privacy. It combines two dotted patterns with specialty 3M frosting foils split into four level applications. Telephone booths that don’t offer enough space for theming applications feature a customized pattern design to conceptualize the room name.
ATTENTION TO DESIGN DETAIL
Improving the workspace usability
The large set of utility pictograms improves the usability of the workspace. The humorously reinterpreted signage—such as prompts reminding people to use hand sanitizers or to not leave any belongings in the toilets —cheers up the office environment.
THEMING OF ROOMS AND LOUNGES
Celebrating content and content makers
Across the five floors, Contentful celebrates content. Our theming and naming concepts pay homage to trailblazing scientists, engineers, artists, and authors. They highlight humanity’s most famous content landmarks and celebrate well-known Berlin places and institutions where Berliners get to immerse themselves in cultural content.
CUSTOM SIGNAGE AND DESIGN APPLICATIONS
Adding character to communal spaces
The custom branded approach enhances the character of communal spaces. The Ritter Cafe, named in tribute to Contentful’s previous office, and The StorageRoom, which celebrates Contenful’s original name, use custom-designed signage and foil applications. The IT Help Desk sign tackles people’s frustration with broken computers in a fun typographic construction.
LARGE-SCALE MURALS
Artworks enriching the office environment
The most prominent environmental design applications are large-scale murals. Using several mediums from chromatic foils through painting, posters, and 3D printed elements, they enhance Contentful’s brand presence and celebrate themed floors with high-impact] artworks.
INCLUSIVE WAYFINDING AND ENVIRONMENTAL GRAPHIC DESIGN
Welcoming to everyone
We delivered Contentful wayfinding and environmental design application solutions that were in synergy with the interior design and aligned with Contentful’s brand values. Our solution has enhanced the workspace’s inclusivity and helped create an inspiring environment while staying true to the playful nature of the Contentful brand.
OUR ENDLESS GRATITUDE FOR HELPING US TO MAKE ALL THIS HAPPEN BELONGS TO
Melissa & Stephanie (and their teams), Alecia (and her team), Manfred (and his team), Benjamin & Tino, Achim (and his team), Eric (and his team), Hernán (and his team), Stefan (and his team) and Filip