One of our favorite furniture products is the Connect It series of desking from Office Furniture Distributors (OFD). (In fact, we love it so much that we use Connect-It for our  Statton Design Group office desks!) We love this innovative product because it is modular, modern, colorful, durable, and completely customizable! It's also exceptionally affordable and has recently expanded into areas beyond desking like conference tables.

We're excited to provide this high-quality product to even more clients in the future! For more information, check out the OFD website and contact us to learn more about the deep list-price discounts we offer on all OFD products.

Historically, modular furniture has earned a negative reputation through its association with the notorious cubicle. Today's modular furniture options are sleeker, more open, customizable, and more conducive to a flexible office environment.

​One of our favorite modular furniture options is the Connect It series of products by Office Furniture Distributors, a local Dallas area vendor based in Carrollton, TX. Need to change a layout, add a desk, increase your storage, or remove a divider panel? Connect It makes all of these tasks flexible, affordable and easy.

Easiest way to make your space more flexible? Put casters on your furniture! This enhanced mobility allows you to easily move furniture to different areas of an office depending on the varying needs of the day. On-the-go layout change is exactly what many businesses are looking for when enhancing their space's flexibility.

​We love Wisconsin-based PS Furniture's Snap™ portable tables for this very reason: they are light, durable, mobile, and folding for easy storage. Can't get much more flexible than that!

Breakout areas are the conference rooms of the flexible office. Breakout areas are great for a few reasons: 1) they naturally segment open plan spaces into areas with discrete functions, 2) they are often easy to erect and easy to move (a la casters!) and 3) they seemingly materialize collaboration and creativity among employees by providing all of the amenities of a conference room space without the aloof formality of slick leather seating.

Mayline, another one of our Wisconsin-based vendors, has a fantastic product for such areas called Keep. Keep is a modular system that allows clients to customize their breakout areas with fold-out tables, media options, whiteboards, walls, storage, and much more. We love working with Mayline and we're very excited to use their Keep collection in some of our client's breakout areas.

Whiteboards are a stand-in image of collaboration and are also extremely effective at enabling workplaces to become more flexible. Strategically placing whiteboards on the few walls in an open-plan space makes every wall an opportunity for collaboration, meetings, or instant breakout sessions.

​Our favorite markerboards are glass. The one shown above is made by Ghent and comes in a variety of colors and customizable options. Glass is a sharp-looking alternative to traditional whiteboards that can double as a projection surface or display area without appearing cheap or out-of-place.

We love using color in our client's spaces. Many companies have been utilizing color as a way to code various areas according to function or activity. This makes for very flexible offices as modifying the function of an area or its activities is as easy as changing the color.

One of the trends we are loving right now at Statton Design Group is what we are calling "The Great Outdoors." Our Dallas-area clients are increasingly looking to incorporate elements of the natural world into their commercial interior design projects, as are many other businesses across the country.

​Although recently popularized, this trend is by no means a new idea. For as long as people have worked indoors, they have longed to transpose the beauty of the natural world into their chaotic and sterile office environments. As Thoreau wrote over 150 years ago, "There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature." He may have been on to something--scientific evidence has long touted the physical, emotional, and psychological health benefits of plants, sunlight, and other natural elements in our environment.

​Bringing The Great Outdoors into your workplace can include a variety of design elements in addition to plant life, such as fire and water features, or natural stone. The key is finding the design element that fits best with your company aesthetic and works within the unique constraints of your space.

What aspect of nature are you looking forward to incorporating in your commercial design project? Leave us a comment and let us know what outdoorsy elements are on your mind!