Straight and Rectangular Desks: The Sensible Default, Done Well

I look at the numbers on this site more than is healthy, and one of them is that rectangular office desks are what most people end up buying, whatever they came in looking for. Corner desks get browsed. Standing desks get compared. The straight desk gets ordered. It is the white t-shirt of office furniture, and like a white t-shirt it is very hard to beat when it fits and a bit sad when it does not.

So this is a guide to making it fit. Widths, depths, legs, and the modesty panel question, using the straight and rectangular desks we actually sell.

Width: the number that decides everything

Our Impulse desks come in 80, 100, 120, 140, 160 and 180cm, and the right one is a function of what goes on it. One screen and a laptop is happy at 120. Two screens want 140 at the least, and 160 if there is a monitor arm involved because the arm needs somewhere to clamp. 180 is for people who spread paper, or share. 80 and 100 are for the corner nobody thought they could use.

The measurement people miss is the width under the top. On the Impulse range it is 10cm less than the desk, so a 140 gives you 130cm of knee room. That matters if a pedestal is going underneath. Take the pedestal width off and see what is left for your legs before you decide.

Depth: 60 or 80

Both depths are on every Impulse straight desk. 80cm is the default and the one to pick for screens, because it puts the monitor about an arm's length away. 60cm is for tight rooms and for benches against a wall, and it is enough for a laptop and a drink. It is not enough for a 27 inch screen unless you like reading at close range. Every desk is 73cm high, which suits most people with an adjustable chair.

Legs: three ways to hold up the same top

• Cantilever. A steel C-shaped leg with the foot pointing back. The front is open, it looks lightest, and it is the cheapest, from £120 for the smallest size. This is the one I would buy for a plain desk.

• Panel end. A solid panel at each end in the same finish as the top, or in white for a two-tone look. It closes the desk in from the sides and does part of the modesty panel's job for free. Same starting price.

• Cable managed. A cantilever leg with a hollow channel so the cables run inside it from the top to the floor. About £40 more, from £158, and the only one of the three that makes a desk look tidy from behind.

All three share the same 25mm top, the same 135kg rating, the same finishes and the same ten year guarantee, so this is a decision about looks and cables rather than strength.

The modesty panel question

A modesty panel is the board across the front of the desk between the legs. It hides your legs from whoever sits opposite, it stops the cables showing, and it stops you stretching out. On a desk facing a wall it is pointless. On a desk facing another desk, or facing the door, it is usually wanted. The panel end desk gets you most of the way there because the ends are already closed, and where a range offers a modesty panel as an option it is listed on the product page. Our Air standing desk lists it as a choice, for instance. If you do not see it as an option, the desk does not come with one.

The bit I built

Every Impulse straight desk on the site has a 3D model, so you can spin the cantilever desk round, change the finish and the frame colour, and see the back of it before it arrives. That is not a gimmick. The back of a desk is the bit most people see, and it is the bit no catalogue photographs.

If you have got this far and just want the sensible answer: a 140 by 80 cantilever in whichever finish matches the floor, with a mobile pedestal underneath. Most of our 140cm office desks are exactly that. And if you want to see the whole shape at once, rectangular office desks is the page with everything straight on it and nothing else. White t-shirts. Plenty of sizes.