Office Desk Decor: Ideas That Keep the Desk Useful

Office desk decor earns its place when it does a job, or at least stays out of the way of the things that do. On a desk you work at, most of what anyone sees is equipment: the desk pad, the pen cup, the nameplate, a clock. Decorating starts with getting those to match and ends with two or three personal things.

The desk decor ideas below, in short:

• Decide what the desk is for before you decorate it.
• Put the working pieces in a single color and material.
• Let four pieces carry the look: desk pad, nameplate, clock and picture frame.
• Add a lamp, one plant and one photo, then stop.
• Take things off before you add anything.

Start with what the desk is for

A photo frame that suits one desk is in the way on another, so first decide which of three desks you have.

A client-facing desk

Visitors are the audience, and they see the desk from the far side: the front edge, the nameplate and anything standing in their line of sight. Keep the decor spare and formal, with a name they can read, a clear surface, one finish across every piece and few personal items. This is the desk to plan for if you want executive office decor. Where each piece goes is covered in how to set up a professional office desk, which plans the layout from the visitor's chair.

A heads-down desk

Nobody looks at this desk but you. Keep the desk pad and the strip between you and the screen plain, and put the things you like to see at the back corners or beside the monitor, where you notice them when you look up. More personal items are fine here than on a client desk, as long as none has to be moved before you can work.

A shared or home desk

This desk is furniture in a room other people use, or a workstation someone else sits at tomorrow. Its decor has to suit the room and move easily: a small matching set in a color taken from the room, with personal things on a shelf or the wall. For a narrow desk or a shared table, see our guide to home office desk accessories for a small desk.

Set the base: one material and one color

A desk is decorated first by the things that are always on it. When the pad, the pen cup, the tray and the card holder come in the same color and the same material, they become a single background, and the few personal things you add stand out against it. Mixed holders each bring another color, and a photo placed among them is one more thing in a crowd.

Color. The method for choosing it against the desk finish and the room is in how to choose a desk set color. For desk decor, one consequence matters: once the set has a color, everything else on the desk either repeats it or stays neutral.

Material. Most of our range is faux leather. For a wood look, the Prestige sets combine wood veneer with faux leather components; the veneer is a thin layer of real wood, not solid wood. They are listed under wood veneer desk sets. Each product page states its material.

Anchor pieces: decor that also does a job

Four pieces carry most of the decorating on a working desk, and each is also a tool.

• Desk pad. The largest block of color on the desk, and every set has one. Our pads come in two sizes, 13.4 × 18.9 in (34 × 48 cm) and 15.0 × 22.8 in (38 × 58 cm); which one fits your desk is worked out in the desk pad size guide.
• Nameplate. Most sets include one. The name (up to 32 characters) and an optional title (up to 36) are printed on a gold or silver metal plate, not engraved. On a client-facing desk every visitor reads it; for a home desk, a set without one does as well. One can also be ordered alone: see personalized desk name plates.
• Clock. Some executive desk sets add one: a separate desk clock on the Star 14-piece set, a large desk clock on the Prestige, a clock built into the pen cup on the Elegance sets and a clock attached to the nameplate on the Chester sets. The last two show the time without adding an object. Clock batteries are not included.
• Picture frame. Every Star set includes one, so the frame matches the pieces around it. For the frame alone, the Star model in Build Your Desk Set offers it as a single piece.

Some executive sets also add one or two desk flags; you type which flag you want when you order.

Decor or clutter: three checks

The same object can be either: a paperweight you picked out is decor, and a promotional one that never left after a conference is clutter. Three checks separate them:

• It has a fixed place. Decor goes back to the same spot after the desk is cleaned.
• You put it there on purpose. Clutter arrives: mail, giveaways, yesterday's cup.
• It leaves the work alone. Anything you have to move before you can write, type or talk to a visitor is in the way.

Keep purely decorative objects to two or three; when another arrives, one leaves. If the surface is crowded with paper, cables and small things, clear those first with our desk organization ideas.

Light, plants and personal items

Once the base is in place, most desks have room for these three. This is general advice; adjust it to your room.

Light

Stand the lamp on the side opposite your writing hand so your hand does not shadow the page, and choose a base that repeats the set's color or the gold or silver of the nameplate plate. Colors shift under a warm bulb, so look at the set under the lamp as well as in daylight.

Plants

One plant is enough. Choose it for the light the desk gets, keep it in a pot with a saucer at a back corner, off the desk pad, and water it somewhere else: our materials and care page lists leaving excess moisture on a piece among the things to avoid.

Personal items

Keep to one framed photo on the surface, always at the same corner; for a change, swap the picture instead of adding a second frame. Diplomas and children's drawings do better on the wall.

Office desk decor in practice: three example desks

A compact home-office desk

A narrow white desk under a window, with a laptop and a plant on the sill. The base is the Vega 4-Piece Desk Set in green ($125), one of our compact desk sets: four faux leather pieces, a 13.4 × 18.9 in (34 × 48 cm) desk pad with a pen cup, a memo holder and a phone stand. Its product page describes a dark teal-green finish with a mottled texture and white contrast stitching, so the set repeats the green of the plant and the stitching repeats the white of the desk. The additions are a lamp and one photo, hung on the wall. The set has no nameplate, which suits a desk without visitors.

A client-facing executive desk

A wide desk in a private office with two visitor chairs. The base is the Star 14-Piece Desk Set in gray ($400), in faux leather on the 15.0 × 22.8 in (38 × 58 cm) pad; its product page describes a slate gray finish with a slight blue tint. Three of the fourteen pieces are the decor: the personalized nameplate base at the front edge, the desk clock where you can see it and the picture frame at a back corner. The other pieces, such as the two-tier document tray and the phone stand, are working equipment in the same finish. Nothing else stands on the surface; the plant goes on a side cabinet.

A dark wood desk with the Prestige

A dark wood desk in a room lined with bookshelves. The base is the Prestige 14-Piece Desk Set with Clock in brown ($500): wood veneer with faux leather components, described on its product page as a warm brown wood-veneer grain around a dark brown pad center. Its fourteen pieces include the 15.0 × 22.8 in (38 × 58 cm) pad, a large desk clock, a two-tier document tray and a personalized nameplate base. The grain is the pattern on this desk, so the additions stay plain: a lamp with a plain shade and a single frame. The set also comes in black, burgundy and rose black.

What to remove

Removing is quicker than adding. Start with these:

• Anything that arrived without being chosen: mail, giveaways, packaging.
• Duplicates, such as a second pen pot or spare mugs.
• Odd holders, once a matching piece does the same job.
• Sticky notes on the edge of the monitor; notes go in the memo holder.
• Anything on the desk pad that is not today's work.

Choose the base first, then decorate

Decorating goes faster in this order: pick the set before the ornaments, because its color and size decide what else fits. Open all desk sets, use the color filter, and read what each product page lists as included: anything shown in a photo but not listed there is not included. Then work at the desk for a week before you add anything.