Your Brand Called. It Wants a Seat at the Design Table.

This week I had the pleasure of chairing a panel at the Amsterdam leg of the Workspace Design Show (you may have been to the London one). I was joined by workplace leaders from Magnum Ice Cream - currently being divested from Unilever and carving out their own identity - and ASML, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of semiconductors. (the essential components used to power everything from smartphones to supercomputers). Two very different organisations.

The topic? The role of brand and culture in workspace design. And joining the conversation was EGM, a Dutch architecture firm known for its people‑centric design approach.

With these things, you sometimes don’t get to pick the panel you’re placed on — and that was the case here. But as the conversation unfolded, it tapped directly into something I’ve been thinking about for years: the overlap between my past life in marketing, and my present work in the world of workplace experience. What fascinates me is the interplay between those moving parts — how space, story and strategy are all tightly intertwined.

First, a few definitions. Not textbook ones, just mine.

Let’s start with brand. For me, brand is the promise an organisation makes to its market, customers and stakeholders. It’s the emotional shorthand for what you stand for and how you show up in the world. Often that promise is bottled into a logo, a strapline, or a campaign. Something that makes people feel something — and know what to expect.

Think Nike’s ‘Just do it’ or John Lewis’ ‘Never knowingly undersold’.

They’re not just words. They signal ambition, identity, and intent.

Now culture. I think there are two types.

The first is culture as the internal cousin of brand, what an organisation tells its people it’s all about. When done badly, it’s a bingo card of beige buzzwords: honesty, integrity, innovation, passion. (Monica Parker calls this “vomiting values onto a wall). But done well, culture statements can genuinely shape how people behave, communicate, and make decisions. At its best, internal culture aligns with external brand so your values guide not just marketing campaigns, but meetings, policies, and how people treat one another. That’s when it really sings.

Then there’s the other type — the one most organisations miss.

It’s the actual culture. The one Seth Godin describes as: “People like us do things like this.” The unwritten rules. The vibes. The invisible norms you feel when you walk into a space. Australian culture consultant Carolyn Taylor warns that ‘the behaviours you tolerate define your culture’. And she’s right. Because while organisations may proudly declare how they think they work, the day-to-day reality is often very different.

So, with all that in mind — what role do brand and culture actually play when you’re shaping a workspace?

What stood out to me in this panel was how differently ASML and Magnum approached that question — and how much that difference reflected their organisational ‘age’.

Take Magnum. As part of their divestment from Unilever, they’re in the process of redefining themselves — moving from being a recognisable product brand (ice cream) to something more emotionally resonant: selling memories. Now, yes, that kind of shift might trigger the odd eye-roll, but in a crowded consumer market it really matters. It’s about elevating the product from something transactional to something meaningful. And that thinking came through in their workspace design too. Rather than filling the walls with brand colours or giant ice creams, the space featured imagery of families and moments of joy — with the product subtly at the centre. They weren’t designing an office. They were designing a mood.

ASML, by contrast, leaned more heavily on culture. Their brand story wasn’t built around product, but people — how they collaborate, where they locate teams, and how they work with clients. Their approach to workspace was shaped by this culture of partnership. They actively look for sites near their customers to improve supply chain performance and strengthen relationships. That cultural lens — proximity, collaboration, embeddedness — is a huge influence on workplace decisions.

So even in just these two examples, you can see how brand and culture aren’t just words on a slide. They directly influence location strategy, spatial design, visual identity, and even the kinds of behaviours those spaces are meant to support.

And that’s where things start to get really interesting.

But what I’m really interested in is how these different elements influence one another, and where workspace design fits into the mix. Can the way you work help shape your brand? I think it can, and Magnum might be in that position right now. They’re still forming. Their brand is evolving, and the conversations they’re having internally — about who they are, what they stand for, and how they want to show up — could end up informing their external promise just as much as the other way around.

ASML, on the other hand, have had their direction set for a while. Their external positioning, built around precision, partnership, and proximity, has shaped the way they operate internally. Their culture isn’t just about values or behaviours. It’s embedded in process, geography, and even hiring strategy. But that’s only one definition of culture. What about the other one? The day-to-day reality of “people like us do things like this”?

That’s where I think workspace design has the power to really influence culture. And it’s a question I put to the team from EGM. I imagined a project kick-off: the architects at the table, the workplace team tasked with managing the change, HR bringing their cultural values, and Marketing pitching their brand values. Somewhere in the middle of all that, the design team has to make sense of the noise and translate it into something coherent and usable.

The answer, they said, is listening. But not just nodding along. They described the importance of being deliberately naïve. Coming in childlike, without assumptions, asking “why” like a toddler, and only then starting to shape a response. You listen, you play it back, you challenge, you refine. That’s how you get to something that reflects what’s really needed, not just what was said in the room.

So what did I make of it all? The obvious answer to the question of how workspace design impacts brand and culture is: it depends. It depends on where the organisation is in its journey, what its priorities are, what its strategy is, and what constraints it’s facing. But what this panel helped me see more clearly is that workspace design can help define your brand, like it is for Magnum. It can help solidify your culture, like it does at ASML. It can even do both.

But get it wrong, and there’s every chance you’ll undermine both.

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