If you’ve visited our office, surely you noticed that orange is everywhere. Upon the first meeting or visit to our office, most reactions are along the lines of “Wow! It’s so bright and happy in here!” or “This wall is so cool, I love it!” and even, “You guys really like orange huh?”

Yes, you might say that we’ve gone above and beyond to incorporate Rock Paper Simple brand colors into our environment. But these colors (and most importantly the orange) were chosen because they best represent our brand personality and values. Our vision, mission statements, and values are all part of our brand core – oops, we’re getting ahead of ourselves! Messaging and identity are an important part of Branding, and that is a discussion we’re saving for another time.

So anyway, the explanation as to why there’s so much orange around the office is really simple. It’s an energetic, high energy color and it helps to represent that not only the freshness of our approach, but also highlights one of our six core values, and that’s FUN! That’s right… FUN is one of our values.

Here’s a bit of a mental picture on how we make it fun at the RPS office. The office is home to roughly a thousand stress balls (at least!), which frequently get bounced around or
thrown at other team members. We host hangouts (complete with drinks and snacks) for the team, our clients, friends and colleagues, and we participate regularly in fun community events. A lot of work gets done from the Dev-Room couch, especially when we’re streaming Netflix, and laughter is common in meetings and conversation – although that might be because we’ve had too much coffee…or too little!

A lot of study has gone into the power of a positive and fun workplace environment, and the benefit of going against typical business tradition. What was found was an affirmative correlation between happy offices and growing profits. Fun in the office leads to a more creative approach to problem solving, strengthens coworker relationships, and increases trust and confidence in the employer.

Brand identity aside, Rock Paper Simple adopted the idea of a fun workplace because it’s also just part of who we are individually. We’ve said before; while we take what we do very seriously, we don’t take ourselves too seriously, and that mentality contributes significantly to the positive solutions that come out of our office.

We truly believe that fun fuels a creative and productive atmosphere… and that just means better results for clients.

So all the orange in the office is a reminder… a reminder of who we are as a brand and as a company. By having a strong brand that is present internally, we are able to cultivate a culture that cares about the company, the team, the clients, the projects… and enjoys the work day. We are reminded by the very environment we have created to enjoy the work we do, because life’s too short not to have fun.

And really, why wouldn’t we want to surround ourselves with such a happy and fun color?