Office lobby art for landlords, from the front door to every floor

Prospective tenants judge a building between the street door and the lift call button, before anyone shows them a floor plate. The agent walks that route on every viewing, so place the art along it: the largest piece on the wall facing the entrance, a second where people stand waiting for the lifts, and one on the floor being shown.

The same walls end up in the brochure and the listing. A wide-angle lens shrinks every painting, so go a size up for the camera. Raised texture photographs well under downlights, one clear colour survives a listing thumbnail, and a dark glossy surface facing a glass façade picks up reflections of the street. If a photographer is booked, put the shoot date in your enquiry and the delivery date is set ahead of it.

A law firm, a software company and a clinic may share one entrance, and none of them chose what hangs there. Skip a brand colour that reads as one tenant's logo, or a subject half the building would not have picked; look for presence from size, surface and light.

Take two or three neutrals from the lobby's own materials and allow one accent colour across the building: the scheme will suit whoever signs next.

Office lobbies are deep, hard and bright, with a long sight line from the glass street front to the lift core. A painting there is often first seen from fifteen or twenty metres away, or from the pavement at night, so a living-room size disappears. As a working rule, let the piece take half to two-thirds of the clear wall width, and on a double-height wall raise it until it clears the desk, the gates and the directory board.

Office reception artwork has one extra rival: the building's name in metal letters behind the desk. Give the name its space and hang the art on the flank wall visitors face while signing in, or opposite the desk, where they wait for their host.

Send the elevation and the viewing distance, and we propose one canvas or two or three panels composed across the joins; for the very largest walls, see oversized and custom-size art.

Upper-floor lift lobbies are small, often windowless and seen for ten seconds at a time; a vertical canvas opposite the lifts is usually all they need. Pick one or two works and have each floor painted as a variation of them, so the building reads as one scheme and every floor still has its own piece. Keep the floor number and the directory clear; if the signage gives each floor a colour, the painting can pick it up.

Two situations are the landlord's alone. When one tenant takes a whole floor, its lift lobby usually becomes its reception and part of its fit-out (see corporate offices); your piece can stay as a welcome or move to another floor, since the building owns it. And as floors are let and refurbished one at a time, order the lift-lobby pieces floor by floor from the same reference codes, as the corridor and lift-lobby series page explains.

A repositioning budget usually keeps what is costly to replace, such as granite, travertine, panelling and lift cars, and spends on what is quick to change. Art is the quickest change of all, and often what dates a lobby most: framed prints from twenty years ago, a faded photographic panel.

Start from the finishes you keep. Send daylight photos of the stone, the metalwork and the new upholstery, and each painting's palette is mixed to sit with them, so a salmon granite or a dark green marble looks chosen rather than inherited. Recolouring a catalogue work is the usual route; the custom page explains it alongside Resize and Vary. Hang the art last, before the photographer, and have stretched or framed pieces put up out of hours so the lobby stays open.

Per building

Each building has its own quote, itemised by position: entrance, lift lobbies by floor, amenity floor, spec suites. It drops straight into the capex request and later the asset register.

Across the fund

Volume pricing starts at 10 pieces and counts the whole order, so the lift lobbies of two buildings ordered together pass it easily.

In phases

Fund the entrance this year and the upper floors next; the second order is painted against the approved photographs of the first.

What moves the figure

Canvas area, depth of texture, the frame and the number of pieces. Shipping is quoted separately.

We are glad to show where a smaller lift-lobby size, or stretched rather than framed, brings a building back inside its line.

An asset manager running several buildings wants the portfolio to feel well kept without every entrance looking like a franchise, and a repeated picture does exactly that. A standard works better: one or two styles, one frame finish, sizes set as a share of each wall, and a colour rule, such as neutrals from the stone plus one accent. Textured abstracts in black frames for the entrances and landscapes in natural wood for the lift lobbies can run through a dozen buildings and still give each its own pieces.

Because nothing is printed or held in stock, every code stays orderable: an acquisition takes on the standard in one order, and a building that is sold can keep its art. Where a building deserves an identity of its own, its street or façade can be painted from a photograph; see paintings from your own image.

Acrylic on canvas, the standard medium, dries to a tough, flexible film; the cleaners need only a soft dry brush or a microfibre duster, with no water or sprays. A few habits keep it looking new:

• Height. Keep the lower edge above bags, trolleys and floor-cleaning machines: usually at least 90 cm off the floor, higher beside a courier drop.
• Fixings. Ask the installer for security hangers that lock the frame to the wall, against theft and the knock that leaves a canvas crooked.
• Sun. Strong sun through a glass front fades any pigment over the years; keep the strongest colour for a wall the sun does not reach.
• Texture. Put deep plaster relief where nobody leans or brushes past, behind a desk or above a bench; flatter brushwork suits a tight lift lobby.