Anglepoise is on a mission to help the British public find greater balance in life after a study found that 72% of Brits have turned to creativity during lockdown and over half of those surveyed found that taking on a creative hobby has reaped a greater positive impact on their wellbeing.
In support of fuelling the nation’s creativity, the iconic British lighting brand has created: ‘The Balancing Act’, a content series set to launch on May 12, in support of Mental Health Awareness Week 2021. The series is designed to provide audiences with tips on how to be empowered creatively and achieve greater balance.
As part of the series, interiors expert Becca Lawson (@malmo_and_moss) is sharing five tips on how to create an inspiring home working space to fuel creativity and help regain balance:
1) Zoning spaces
“One of the things I struggled with the most during lockdown was when I was working at the kitchen table in the midst of all of the day-to-day mess of household life. I found it distracted me hugely from my work as I could see chores that needed doing from the corner of my eye – so I would end up taking breaks from my work to hoover up breakfast cereal I could see on the floor! If at all possible, try and carve out a workspace within your home that is discreet from the rest of the house. Whether it is a dedicated room you can use as an office or just a corner of a room that you zone as a workspace. Discover your inner Marie Kondo and plan lots of storage into the space so that you are able to declutter your desk and put away your work at the end of the day to create a separation between work and home life.”
2) Lighting
“One of the first and most fundamental things to take into consideration when planning a workspace is lighting. Bad lighting causes fatigue, eyestrain, headaches and irritability and dark spaces can negatively affect your mood. Natural light during both the morning and evening has been shown to increase concentration and focus. Try and position your workspace close to a window – taking small breaks to look outside and soak up sunshine can help to increase your focus. Increased natural light during the day also helps you sleep better at night meaning you are likely to be well-rested and on the ball for your next day at work. If you are working in low lighting conditions or in the evening, then good task lighting is really important. I have grown up with Anglepoise lamps – there was one in my dad’s study at home, I took one with me to University and my husband brought one to our marriage! They are a simple classic design that perfectly combine form and function and offers lots of flexibility in terms of lighting position.”
3) Colour
“My interior style is heavily influenced by Scandinavian design. I love the simple, timeless nature of their interiors that is not trend driven. Key colours to a Scandi colour palette are whites, blacks, greys, and softer neutrals like beige. Colours which can evoke feelings of calm and security and provide a serene working environment. For consistency and flow in your home and workspace try and keep to a small core palette of colours and materials rather than introducing lots if competing colours, textures and patterns. If you want to introduce brighter colours think about how to do this through artwork, photography or perhaps textiles.”
4) Bring in nature
“Access to the natural world is important for our psychological and physiological functioning. Biophilic design recognises our innate need to connect with nature and brings elements of the outdoors into our homes to benefit health and well-being. There are many different ways you can do this from using glazing to create connection between indoor and outdoor space, adding house plants to introduce soothing greenery that also purifies your air and incorporating natural materials as much as possible into your room design. We recently finished a project to construct a garden building to use an office that draws on all these biophilic design principles and I have already felt a huge boost to my creativity by being in a space that is much more closely connected to nature and the outdoors. It feels much more inspiring than being in a corporate office building.”
5) Fragrance
“Smell can have a big impact on mood, mindset and productivity and is one of the easiest things to play around with and adjust. In our garden office I have an electric scent diffuser that also doubles up as soft lighting. I love the fact that you can play around with using different oils in it to have different scents for different times of day. So, for example cinnamon-based scents are good for improving focus, citrus notes waken you and lift spirits whereas pine-based scents can increase alertness! Scented candles and scent diffusers are other ways to bring fragrance into your home and workspace.”
Iconic British brand Anglepoise invented the balanced-arm lamp in 1932, but as well as being a key design component, balance is a key part of the brands culture and through this project Anglepoise hope to continue raising awareness of the importance of work/life balance.
