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Companies are increasingly coming to terms with the idea that the workspace, is an under-utilized brand asset.

There are a couple of interesting recent examples:

Marketing services companies are notoriously bad at marketing themselves and most of the big companies house their employees in cubicle ridden offices that look like insurance companies, but not the strangely named Fahrenheit 212 ( A unit of Saatchi), whose workspace has become the brand.

The Fahrenheit 212 logo and the bold signature palette of white, gray and an orange as bright as goldfish are ubiquitous in the 5,030-square-foot, eighth-floor offices, executed by David Howell, principal of David Howell Design.

"A blown-up version of the logo, featuring two perfect gray squares side by side with the company name in white, are stenciled onto the polished concrete floor in the reception area, in a meeting space at the center and again on a white wall at the back of the office. The word "Fahrenheit in gray and a hot orange "212"are printed vertically on a white column at the far right corner of the entry and waiting area."

Virgin Atlantic has just selected an architecture firm from a longlist of 50 for its new corporate HQ in Norwalk. They gave the contract to Bavier because they integrated branding into the plans.

"Bavier Design's proposal was highlighted by plans to build an office that reflects flight routes and key Virgin Atlantic destinations. The proposal included corridors shaped like flight routes curving around the globe, workstations representing clouds using materials that embody light and air, while featuring elements that mimic airplane components such as wings and turbine engines."

According to author, Daniel Pink we have now entered the Conceptual Age", where creativity and right brain thinking is defining successful business in the Western markets. Recently, even some groups at Microsoft have started to experiment with shared desks and new work environments, in an attempt to foster a new level of creativity.

So there are two forces driving the design of new workspaces: the need to create environments that foster and encourage greater creativity from their employees and environments that uniquely reflect the brand.

Update-Lee McEwan has a nice post where he's gathered some cultural examples of that show the drudgery in the office workspace, which has been something of a stimulis for the desire to change. He only missed Dilbert and the cult movie Office Space