Good design and design budgets are often ring-fenced for clients. We seldom get to work on projects that are exclusively for the benefit of staff members - and out of sight of the customer.

Recently we were asked to bring life and vibrancy to the staff canteen of the Cumberland Hotel, Marble Arch. Our remit was to bring colour to the subterranean space and to liven up tired magnolia walls. The staff at the hotel work incredibly long and usually unsocial hours (as they do in most hotels) and management wanted to create a more welcoming and cheerful environment for them to spend their breaks and down time.

The hotel has a very cosmopolitan customer and staff base so we quickly agreed on the theme of World icons - to bring familiar landmarks to their team, many of whom are working a very long way from home.

Icons from around the globe - Christ the Redeemer, The Statue of Liberty, The Pyramids, The Eiffel Tower, The Colosseum, The Sydney Opera House, The Taj Mahal, The Petronas Towers and even Scandinavia aglow in the Northern Lights, among many others, have been injected with colour and now adorn the canteen walls.

The feedback has been fantastic from the entire team and a real talking point over meal times as staff locate homeland landmarks and places they have visited. We would love to show you more of the completed design….. but this isn’t for you… this is solely for the Cumberland team : D