OfficeMax Excellence

Here at Spaceworks, we are constantly forward thinking about the future of design and its impact on everything we do. When the team and I received the brief from OfficeMax for their new customer experience showrooms, I knew that there were many things from our in-depth research and learnings over the past few years that we could integrate into every aspect of the process.

OfficeMax was one of those projects that I’m very passionate about. It combines many aspects of future-thinking design that will stand the test of time - impacting positively on the wellbeing of everyone who gets to experience it.

OfficeMax’s brief was seemingly quite straightforward; they needed a business-to-business showroom that displayed who they were as a brand, what products and services they offered and a place that lived and breathed their core values, showed their community contribution and displayed their innovation.

Digging into OfficeMax as a brand and the extent of their offering was overwhelming – you only have to see the size of their Distribution Centre to see they have breadth and depth in what they stock. I only knew a sliver of the full product range – stationery. But stationery is only a small part of a much bigger engine.

Along with the brand and product depth are also great passions for sustainability and community support. I’ve seen many businesses tip their hat at these but spend just 15 minutes with the team at OfficeMax and you’ll see they live and breathe these core philosophies.

Incorporating retail best practice

A key direction from OfficeMax was that we incorporate retail best practice thinking, ensuring a seamless flow from category to category. They also wanted simplified storytelling for detailed product solutions through the use of imagery rather than endless text or signage, product engagement and retail theatrics.

The sales transaction between the showroom and a B2B customer from a retail display perspective is largely the same as business-to-consumer, but without the reliance on retail shopfronts and point of sale eftpos. The requirement for engagement and experience however is the same, if not more important in B2B where sales are often far larger and the pipeline is longer than consumer retail.

There cannot be too much importance placed on experience as a tool for sales. And this should start from the moment the customer walks through the door. When you arrive at OfficeMax, you’re offered a coffee or tea to sample the wide range of coffee machines available for purchase. This simple act of hospitality also showcases the wide variety of coffee, tea and milk that OfficeMax sells. 

From a design perspective, the kitchen area resembles a café with hardwearing materials, a black-on-black slatted design and an overhead display unit constructed with mesh and steel. As with any well designed café, the main counter is the heart and vibrant core of the space, which is what we designed here. It is the place for initial connection and conversation, leading into the sales journey.

From the café you are guided to the Makerspace area – an educational space designed to appeal to customers in education, such as teachers. They can experience essential tools in a vibrant and colourful school-like space. We wanted this area to feel both childlike and professional, appealing to both teachers and students. Primary colours are classically used in school environments to enhance playfulness, with play an integral tool in learning. We chose blue as the main colour and surrounded the space with a steel frame, giving it an identity and a clear line of sight from anywhere in the showroom. In colour psychology, blue is used in learning environments to enhance creativity, improve memory and maintain alertness. As part of the design, we incorporated full height sliding whiteboards that can be used to open up the space or make it smaller, depending on the size of the group.

From the Makerspace zone visitors move on to the myriad office furniture solutions, with technology, operational computers, TVs and audio so you can see how it works.

As Spaceworks is a specifier of office furniture, we know first-hand that the best way to showcase products for sale is to give customers a good / better / best solution and to have it all set up so they can test it. With OfficeMax, we created aluminium room frames to delineate and showcase these three options. Each one was staged with a bright block colour to demand attention by standing out. In retail displays, lighting and colour assist with attracting attention. With so much visual excitement, it’s imperative to create something bold that makes customers stop and pay attention.

For those with sustainability as a focus, we created a story area for OfficeMax’s home-brand paper solution. This details how and where the paper is sourced and associated regeneration efforts. Stories that have depth are best told with visual aids because it is not easy to get customers to stand and read long pieces of text. Instead, we created a curiosity – a tree supported by only a small amount of text. The aim is to interest customers in stopping to seek out answers.

While you may visit OfficeMax for stationery and office items, there is much more to their product offering. To illustrate this we suspended a mannequin of a tradie wearing safety gear from a tripod so it hangs inside a manhole. Who knew OfficeMax did safety gear? Or that its range is so extensive. This area was fun and easy to design. We used industrial mesh in bright orange for an alarming visual colour, mannequins wearing the products and an improvised hole in the ground to show the breadth of the safety gear for sale. This area is dynamic and colourful; it makes the necessary look exciting.

But there is even more to come. Turn from the safety area and the far corner showcases a full suite of cleaning equipment and consumables. Here too, customers have opportunities to experiment with the products before making their choice. Appropriate flooring and wall materials are provided for trying out cleaning solutions. Engagement, or try before you buy, is a key mantra throughout this space.

When leaving the cleaning area, you’re presented with a packaging wall, laid out in the style of a distribution centre. It is the same layout that many of OfficeMax’s customers use, enabling them to see solutions in action. The packaging area demonstrates that not all boxes are equal and that the speed and efficiency of product delivery is all about the packaging solutions used. This wall and display area were designed to show customers the journey from packaging to courier exit. It visually shows the boxes available and explains the process in a dynamic and fun way without customers having to read manuals or product books.

With such depth to the OfficeMax range, the showroom needed to entice customers to walk around the entire space. Even if they were only interested in stationery, their exposure to the extensive cleaning range, dynamic packaging solutions and other product categories opens the door to more sales.

Successfully driving people from one area to another is about theatrics – colours that grab attention, displays that are fun rather than shelves crammed with product, and images that tell stories rather than traditional signage telling you what you can already see. The signage solution designed for OfficeMax is informative, subtle, wayfinding and tells a story.

For Spaceworks, the OfficeMax project represented an opportunity to go all in on current and emerging retail trends. Customers in 2021 want a retail experience and we designed a showroom that provides exactly that.