Corporate Archives Planning and Design

Preserving historic artifacts and company treasures.

July 8th, 2021 - 4 min read

Businesses establish archives to store and protect items like letters, memos, reports, photographs, brochures, signage, and other artifacts. These “everyday” items might seem ordinary when they’re created, but they reflect a firm’s unique historic role in a particular time and place.

Every company — particularly larger firms — should consider preserving digital and physical records in a way that keeps them organized and accessible to future researchers.

Here are just a few of the corporations we’ve helped with archival storage design projects.

Delta Airlines

Corporate history often reflects popular culture, and Delta is no exception: Flight attendants’ attire, on-board china, and other aspects of in-flight service reflect changing tastes and attitudes throughout the past century. “These collections are part of history,” said Associate Archivist Tina Seetoo. “I’m referring not only to the company’s history, but also to the history of Atlanta, and the history of Atlanta becoming a gateway to the world.” Read Full Story.

Flavor Company Archive

This well-known flavor company built an archive space in its new headquarters to consolidate and protect items that staff have been storing since the firm’s founding. The archives store historic and modern advertisements, signs, tins, and other memorabilia. Staff at the firm wanted to allow for room to grow in the future, so the Spacesaver consultant designed a large High-Density Mobile Shelving system but only ordered shelving for one carriage for the initial installation. Additional carriages were installed as the collection grew.

corporate archive storage design cabinets

Professional Sports Team Archive

This professional baseball team needed to store historically significant memorabilia, including home plates from championship games, jerseys, and other items. The space allocated for the archive in the stadium was small, so the planning and design team asked the local Spacesaver consultant to design a Spacesaver “compactor” high-density storage system to keep archival items organized and accessible.See Other Sports Team Solutions.

Apparel Brand Vault

This apparel brand keeps one sample of every version of every product in a climate controlled vault. Records and memorabilia are also stored in the vault, and the contents are kept under lock and key. The final level of security is a passcode-protected Spacesaver High-Density Mobile Shelving system equipped with Touch Technology Control™. The system generates an audit of who opened which aisle, and when.

Lifestyle Brand’s Product Library

Like many other apparel design firms, this lifestyle brand maintains an extensive product library at its headquarters. Samples of lounge wear, intimates, and activewear are stored on-site for eight seasons to enable designers and buyers to reference past products as they work. Three staffers are continually pulling requested items for meetings, returning stock, and replacing older apparel with more recent items. See More.