Airbnb WorldPride Campaign
Client — Airbnb
Creative Agency — Cash Studios
Role — Designer
Environmental Graphics, Signage, Brand + Event Collateral, Media Assets
Spring - Summer 2019
Airbnb approached our team at Cash Studios to collaborate on their annual Pride campaign. The theme of the Pride campaign focused on catalyzing connections between different generations of LGBTQ+ folks, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the historic Stonewall Riots.
To celebrate WorldPride, Airbnb hosted a pop-up space in New York City to raise awareness in the LGBTQ+ community. I designed the interactive exhibitions and signage inside the Airbnb pop up, as well as title cards for the hero campaign film.
Common Thread
The Common Thread installation, one of the centerpieces of the pop-up, aims to bridge the deep generational gap within the LGBTQ+ community. We designed questions that were both reflective (i.e. What does Pride mean to you?)
and lighthearted (i.e. Go-to Karaoke song?) for participants of all ages to answer.
Each participant would use a spool of thread to mark their answers on the canvas.
Because each decade is represented by a different color thread, the end result is a stunning visual tapestry of the common threads that unite different generations.
Production-ready blueprints
In situ mockup of Common Thread
Common Thread encourages folks to see beyond surface-level differences to appreciate and celebrate the common threads that unite us all.
Photography by Lindsay McAleavy
Postcards From Pride
Postcards from Pride, the second interactive installation in the pop-up, fosters an intergenerational dialogue by encouraging people to ask and answer questions to a different generation on postcards. To facilitate this dialogue, we highlighted two prompts: “Stay curious. Ask a question to a different generation” and “Share Wisdom. Answer a question from a different generation.”
The intergenerational conversations were immortalized as a snapshot of the current cultural dialogue, because the postcards were collected into a time capsule that will be opened 50 years from now.
On one half of the postcard, a participant could write any question they might be curious to pose to someone of a different generation. On the other half, a stranger from a different generation would write in their answer to the question.
In-situ mockup of the installation that I designed.
Photo by Lindsay McAleavy
Production Coordinator Responsibilities
In addition to my design contributions, I was also the Production Coordinator on this campaign. I PA’ed the Pride film and photo shoot, and acted as a casting agent to assemble our real-people cast under a tight timeline. Check out Connecting 50 Years of Pride, the hero film for the WorldPride Campaign.
Thank you to the incredible Airbnb team and Ivan Cash for the opportunity to work on such a meaningful project. While spreading awareness about queer history and activism is a start, I’m also determined to deepen support for the community with direct, tangible action.