Once you have your yoga business marketing action plan set and you’ve leased or bought space, it’s time for yoga studio design.
Yoga studio design refers to your color scheme, décor, and furnishings. You can do this yourself or hire an interior designer. I'm not an interior designer, but I'll make some basic recommendations.
The sky is the limit to creating a beautiful and functional yoga space.
However, one must is a hardwood or laminate (looks-like-wood), bamboo, or cork. Avoid linoleum, vinyl, marble, carpet, and concrete. Wood flooring is warm. if you want padding for your clients, offer bolsters, blankets, and foam blocks.
You have to consider the style of yoga you teach also. if you teach kids, make it kid friendly. if you teach Iyengar and will us the wall, keep pictures off the walls.
Other basic considerations (not an exhaustive set of décor considerations by any stretch of the imagination):
- Natural light is good for yoga studio design. However, if you're on a ground floor you may have students who wish not to be seen from outside. also, if you need the walls for postures, you don't want lots of windows.
- No fluorescent lights.
- Ambient lighting is best.
- Candles: only if supervised closely. I would opt for lights that look like candles if you wanted the candle ambiance. why? fire hazard.
In my humble view, mirrors are more a distraction than a benefit. That said, mirrors allow yoga students to observe their form and technique. It’s a judgment call. I prefer no mirrors and instead prefer the yoga teacher to observe and correct technique. also, it’s handy having wall space available for inversions and support; mirrors take away wall space.
- Hardwood is optimal in yoga studio design. other decent options: laminate (looks like wood, but doesn’t feel quite as nice), bamboo, or cork. Avoid concrete, vinyl, linoleum, marble, and especially carpet. why especially carpet? Because it’s dirty, it smells, and is chemically laden.
- if you want to create a padded space, provide blankets, bolsters, and blocks.
Generally, for optimal yoga studio design, it’s a good idea to keep your walls available for posture assistance – especially inversions. This means paint them or use wood, but don't decorate them in a way that prevents posture assistance.
I strongly urge you provide mats, and all the accessories for your classes.
Avoid strong incense. also, request that people not wear perfumes/colognes because lots of people are sensitive to scent. That said, I suggest you create a consistent, pleasant, subtle smell to your yoga studio. Subtle scent is good to cover up body odor. It’s a delicate balance between just enough scent and not too much.
Even if you're in an urban setting, do your best to secure some parking for your students. if your building has pay parking, see if you can arrange that it's free for your students if the ticket is validated in your studio.
That said, if much of your clientele are vigilant environmental advocates, maybe you’re better off not providing parking in a gesture to encourage public transit, cycling, and walking.
If you can, choose space that isn't noisy from adjacent businesses (i.e. a factory).
- Keep your studio spotless. This means your mats, equipment, your floor (especially your floor), the bathrooms, and all place your clients will be.
- clean your mats and the room for your students. This is a very nice client service. Don't tell your students to spray down the mats (unless they bring their own mat).
There's a lot more to studio décor and furnishing than this meager list. I'm not an expert. I hope my list gets you started thinking about the myriad of studio design options you should consider. Visit lots of yoga studios for ideas. Talk to other yoga studio owners for ideas. Explore, investigate, and inquire.I’ll end with this: for every design feature you're thinking about installing or implementing, ask whether it will hinder, enhance or have no effect on your students' yoga asana/meditation practice? Do what enhances delivery of your benefit to your yoga students.
fluorescent lights, yoga studio
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