Cambridge Innovation Centers (CIC) are a real estate company that offers turnkey office and lab space to beginning and growing companies on a month-to-month basis. Their unique business models allow companies to grow and shift without huge overhead costs and limiting leases. From their first coworking space in Kendall Square, CIC has become global with a community of over 14 000 companies. To celebrate their premium clients, CIC reached out to Playwell Bricks to commission a gift that represents the CIC brand and what they do.

Playwell’s contact at CIC explained that they’d come across custom brick sets at various industry trade shows, which piqued their interest. “One of the quirks of our CIC coworking spaces is that each one features a LEGO® wall for creative breaks,” they told Playwell. A custom brick set was an excellent fit into these spaces as well as CIC’s brand identity.

The client envisioned an office desk for this custom set (click here to view the custom lab set they commissioned for their turnkey lab space clients). To get the feel of a CIC office space, they shared photographs of their spaces, complete with brand colours and decorative elements. In addition, they shared some stickers they’d designed in the past, for possible inclusion as artwork. They’d also like to see the CIC logo on a computer screen, if possible.

Playwell Bricks designer Eric Dubois Yang studied these pictures and created the first concept to send to the client. That first concept didn’t quite hit the mark, but it gave the client and Eric a place to work from.

Using the client’s feedback, Eric soon created a fresh office space with a plant and a colourful corkboard. He included one of the shared sticker designs as wall art on the far side of the corkboard, giving what would otherwise be empty space a pop of branding and colour. The computer displayed the CIC logo as requested.

The plant proved to be an unexpectedly sticky point, as the client requested to see how different sized plants would look in the space. There is a limit of plant bricks available, but Eric cheerfully tried them all until the client decided which suited the space best. Here at Playwell Bricks, the team knows how much these details can matter.

Once the design was approved, the team started production, and CIC delivered the marketing content they wanted included in the build instructions; a lovely thank you note to the companies that helped build the CIC community “brick by brick.”

Let every gift tell your story. For gifts that reflect your culture, elevate your relationships, and amplify your message, custom-designed Playwell Bricks sets are an inspired choice. Contact Playwell Bricks and schedule your discovery call today.