Airbnb Faces

Employee uniqueness embraced

Digital & Print
Data Visualization
About the project
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Example of original, hand-drawn artwork and resulting scan.
Adobe Illustrator scripting to scan, vectorize, and isolate layers.
Patterns created for each office locale, to be paired with corresponding employee.
Example of single sticker (name omitted).

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Following the launch of Airbnb's visual identity, the company hosted Airbnb One, a gathering for employees and for the first time uniting every single one globally in one place. Embracing one of their primary brand pillars of Belonging and distinct illustration style, they sought to make each employee feel seen. What if we made sticker sheets for every employee—their likeness, name, and office location?

MacFadyen.co was tasked with the production workflow for all 2,500 employees. From hand-drawn to vector prints, this is how we did it.

First, human resources provided a list for illustrator Agnes Lee to get started on. MacFadyen.co took early samples and began testing the scanning process of what would be ~300 pages. A photoshop action imported and normalized the contrast to optimize for the best vector tracing results. Custom Illustrator actions and scripts were developed to get each person into a similar format, while preserving overrides and file flexibility down the tool chain.

Each step of the process was tested and iterated upon before taking on the database. It's pretty cool the volume and personalization of work that can be achieved with some early planning and iteration.